CVE-2026-102992: piscina Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-67c8-pqhq-4rmx",
  "modified" : "2026-10-01T15:03:33Z",
  "published" : "2026-10-01T15:03:33Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2026-102992" ],
  "summary" : "piscina: Prototype-pollution gadget in ThreadPool.options allows RCE via execArgv / loadBalancer / env",
  "details" : "### Summary\n\nA prototype-pollution gadget in `ThreadPool.options` allows an attacker who can pollute `Object.prototype` to execute arbitrary code in Piscina worker threads, invoke arbitrary functions during task scheduling, or inject environment variables into workers. The root cause is that `ThreadPool.options` is created as a plain object inheriting from `Object.prototype`, so any option without an explicit default in `kDefaultOptions` can be supplied via the prototype chain.\n\n### Details\n\nIn `src/index.ts` the `ThreadPool` constructor builds the resolved options object as a plain object:\n\n```ts\nthis.options = { ...kDefaultOptions, ...options, filename, maxQueue: 0 }\n```\n\nBecause this object has `Object.prototype` as its prototype, reads for properties that are not own properties of the object and are not present in `kDefaultOptions` fall back to `Object.prototype`. This means a prototype-pollution primitive (e.g. from a vulnerable `merge()` or `JSON.parse` merge elsewhere in the application) can inject values for `execArgv`, `env`, `loadBalancer`, `argv`, `workerData`, `resourceLimits`, `niceIncrement`, `closeTimeout`, `recordTiming`, `stricterFIFO`, `workerHistogram`, and `trackUnmanagedFds`.\n\nThe most serious gadget is `execArgv`, which is passed directly to `new Worker(..., { execArgv })`. An attacker can set `Object.prototype.execArgv = ['--require', '/tmp/attacker.js']`, causing every worker to preload and execute the attacker-controlled module on startup.\n\nThis issue survived the fix for **GHSA-x9g3-xrwr-cwfg / CVE-2026-55388** (\"Prototype Pollution Gadget → RCE via inherited options.filename\"). That advisory hardened the `Piscina` constructor's `filename` read and `run()`'s `filename`/`name` reads, but `ThreadPool.options` itself was not created with a null prototype. The same class of attack is therefore still possible against any option without an explicit default in `kDefaultOptions`.\n\n### PoC\n\n```js\nimport { resolve } from 'node:path'\nimport Piscina from 'piscina'\n\nObject.prototype.execArgv = ['--require', '/tmp/attacker.js']\n\nconst pool = new Piscina({\n  filename: resolve(import.meta.dirname, 'worker.js'),\n  minThreads: 1,\n  maxThreads: 1,\n})\n\nawait pool.run(1)\n```\n\n`/tmp/attacker.js` is executed in the worker on startup. A full reproduction repository with `execArgv`, `loadBalancer`, and `env` vectors is available at https://github.com/Fcmam5/piscina-pp-poc.\n\n### Impact\n\n- **Remote Code Execution**: via `execArgv` (arbitrary `--require` module preloaded in every worker on spawn).\n- **Arbitrary code execution in the main thread**: via `loadBalancer`, an attacker-supplied function that is called during task scheduling.\n- **Environment/CLI option injection**: via `env`, which is passed to each worker constructor.\n- **Denial of Service / unexpected behavior**: via other reachable options such as `workerData`, `resourceLimits`, `niceIncrement`, `closeTimeout`, `recordTiming`, etc.\n\nAnyone using Piscina in an application where `Object.prototype` can be polluted (e.g. through a dependency with a prototype-pollution vulnerability) is impacted.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V4",
    "score" : "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "piscina"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "5.0.0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "5.3.2"
      } ]
    } ]
  }, {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "piscina"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "4.9.4"
      } ]
    } ]
  }, {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "piscina"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "6.0.0-rc.1"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "6.0.0-rc.5"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/security/advisories/GHSA-67c8-pqhq-4rmx"
  }, {
    "type" : "ADVISORY",
    "url" : "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-102992"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/commit/0cb12fca37f526065b072592afe954574dcc656f"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/commit/2f69f67159a0e48b38fd61fa4a91c2fdc19fff72"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/commit/5be7bbb19e3787bb698862cd516121a578d690f7"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/commit/bebbda255c2981cecddd36b171b94be2fd41c9a6"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/releases/tag/v4.9.4"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/releases/tag/v5.3.2"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/piscinajs/piscina/releases/tag/v6.0.0-rc.5"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-1321" ],
    "severity" : "CRITICAL",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-10-01T15:03:33Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2026-09-30T20:17:27Z"
  }
}