CVE-2026-45623

CRITICAL CVSS 3.1: 9.1 EPSS 0.61%
Updated Aug 07, 2026
Postcss
Parameter Value
CVSS 9.1 (CRITICAL)
Affected Versions before 8.5.12
Fixed In 8.5.12
Type CWE-22 (Path Traversal), CWE-200 (Information Exposure)
Vendor Postcss
Public PoC No

PostCSS takes a CSS file and provides an API to analyze and modify its rules by transforming the rules into an Abstract Syntax Tree. In versions 8.5.11 and prior, the PreviousMap parses the /*# sourceMappingURL=PATH */ comment from any CSS string passed to process() and dereferences PATH against the local filesystem with no scheme, allowlist, or traversal check. An attacker who controls the CSS input can cause the host process to read any file readable by Node and leak the first ~10 bytes of its content through the resulting JSON.parse SyntaxError message.

The bug also yields a precise file-existence oracle and a controllable-read primitive that may be combined with large-file targets for DoS. The behaviour is triggered with PostCSS's default options — no from, no map, no plugins required — and is therefore reachable from any pipeline that runs untrusted CSS through PostCSS (CMS themes, user-uploaded styles, browser-extension/userstyle processors, build pipelines for third-party packages, blog comment renderers, etc.). This issue has been fixed in version 8.5.12.

Attack Parameters

Attack Vector
Network
Can be exploited remotely
Attack Complexity
Low
Easy to exploit
Privileges Required
None
No privileges needed
User Interaction
None
No user interaction needed

Impact Assessment

Confidentiality
High
Complete data leak
Integrity
None
No data modification
Availability
High
Complete denial of service

CVSS Vector v3.1

Vulnerable Products 1

Configuration From (including) Up to (excluding)
Postcss Postcss
cpe:2.3:a:postcss:postcss:*:*:*:*:*:node.js:*:*
8.5.12

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