GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq: Crawl4AI LLM Credential Exfiltration Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq",
  "modified" : "2026-06-16T21:00:31Z",
  "published" : "2026-06-16T21:00:31Z",
  "aliases" : [ ],
  "summary" : "Crawl4AI: LLM credential exfiltration in Docker server via request base_url and env: token resolution",
  "details" : "### Summary\n\nThe Docker API server let a request control where LLM calls were sent and which environment variable an LLM token resolved from. Both could be abused to exfiltrate server-held secrets. The Docker API is unauthenticated by default.\n\n### Vector 1 - attacker base_url\n\n`/md`, `/llm`, and `/llm/job` accepted a `base_url` in the request and used it as the LLM endpoint while still attaching the server's configured provider API key. An attacker set `base_url` to a server they control and received the provider key (and any provider keys the server holds) in the inbound request.\n\n### Vector 2 - arbitrary environment variable read via `env:`\n\n`LLMConfig(api_token=\"env:NAME\")` resolved `NAME` from the server environment with `os.getenv`. Because request bodies were deserialized into `LLMConfig` (via a crawler config / extraction strategy), an attacker could set `api_token=\"env:SECRET_KEY\"` (or `env:REDIS_PASSWORD`, etc.) and, paired with an attacker `base_url`, exfiltrate that secret. Reading the server's `SECRET_KEY` enables forging authentication tokens.\n\n### Impact\n\nDisclosure of LLM provider API keys and other server secrets to an attacker-controlled endpoint; reading the JWT `SECRET_KEY` can lead to authentication bypass.\n\n### Fix\n\n- The LLM endpoints ignore a request-supplied `base_url`; the endpoint is always derived server-side from the provider name. The field is still accepted but no longer honored (no breaking 4xx).\n- `LLMConfig` refuses `env:` resolution of protected environment-variable names (names containing SECRET/PASSWORD/PRIVATE, prefixes CRAWL4AI*/AWS_SECRET*, and SECRET_KEY/REDIS_PASSWORD/TOKEN). Normal provider keys (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY) are unaffected.\n\n### Workarounds\n\n- Upgrade to the patched version.\n- Enable authentication (`CRAWL4AI_API_TOKEN`).\n- Do not place sensitive secrets in the server environment alongside provider keys.\n\n### Credits\n\n- Geo ([geo-chen](https://github.com/geo-chen)) - reported the LLM credential exfiltration via request base_url.\n- Internal security audit (Crawl4AI maintainers) - the env: arbitrary-variable read.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "PyPI",
      "name" : "crawl4ai"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "0.8.8"
      } ]
    } ],
    "database_specific" : {
      "last_known_affected_version_range" : "<= 0.8.7"
    }
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/security/advisories/GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/unclecode/crawl4ai"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-200", "CWE-522", "CWE-918" ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-06-16T21:00:31Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}