Critical severity · published Aug 25, 2026
CVE-2026-45018
Chainlit: Command injection via MCP stdio transport allows unauthenticated remote code execution
9.8
CVSS
1.1%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Chainlit is a Python framework for building production-ready conversational AI applications. From 2.4.0rc0 until 2.12.0, Chainlit deployments with features.mcp.enabled set to true in .chainlit/config.toml expose the POST /mcp endpoint without requiring authentication. For stdio transport, the endpoint accepts a user-controlled fullCommand string. The validate_mcp_command() function in backend/chainlit/mcp.py checks only the executable name against config.features.mcp.stdio.allowed_executables and passes unchecked arguments to StdioServerParameters in backend/chainlit/server.py. Because npx supports the -c argument, an attacker can execute arbitrary shell commands with the privileges of the Chainlit process. If allowed_executables is unset, its None default is treated as allowing every executable. This issue is fixed in version 2.12.0.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)1.1% · higher than 65% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
CH
chainlit · Chainlit
>= 2.4.0rc0, < 2.12.0 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-45018
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-45018
github.com
https://github.com/Chainlit/chainlit/blob/2.12.0/docs/security-advisory-2026-mcp.md#spl-2026-001--command-injection-via-mcp-stdio
github.com
https://github.com/Chainlit/chainlit/commit/0565fd0eccb915fce159929598b053ed79f6e0c9
github.com
https://github.com/Chainlit/chainlit/releases/tag/2.12.0
github.com
https://github.com/Chainlit/chainlit/security/advisories/GHSA-w3fx-mc44-mf6j
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