High severity · published Mar 12, 2026
CVE-2026-32116
Magic Wormhole: "wormhole receive" allows arbitrary local file overwrite
8.1
CVSS
0.4%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Magic Wormhole makes it possible to get arbitrary-sized files and directories from one computer to another. From 0.21.0 to before 0.23.0, receiving a file (wormhole receive) from a malicious party could result in overwriting critical local files, including ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and .bashrc. This could be used to compromise the receiver's computer. Only the sender of the file (the party who runs wormhole send) can mount the attack. Other parties (including the transit/relay servers) are excluded by the wormhole protocol. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.23.0.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.4% · higher than 29% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
MA
magic-wormhole · magic-wormhole
>= 0.21.0, < 0.23.0 · source: vendor
MW
Magic Wormhole · Magic-wormhole Project
0.21.0 before 0.23.0 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-32116
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-32116
Mitigation
https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole/security/advisories/GHSA-4g4c-mfqg-pj8r
More from magic-wormhole
3.5
CVE-2026-42448
wormhole receive, with --output pointing at an existing directory can be path-traversed
