CVE-2025-54794: Claude Code Working Directory Sandbox Escape via Path Prefix Matching

HERMES

HERMES THREAT SCORE & OPERATIONAL EXPLOITABILITY

Target: Claude Code Local Path Boundary Validator

Confidence: 96%

84 / 100

HIGH

Measures real-world operational relevance, exploit weaponization, and active threat posture.

Dimension Breakdown

Exploitability 18 / 20

Threat Activity 15 / 20

Weaponization 17 / 20

Exposure 16 / 20

Prevalence 17 / 20

Impact 18 / 20

Exploit Maturity 17 / 20

Attack Chain Potential 18 / 20

⚖️ Divergence & Operational Rationale

CVSS v3.1 rates this vulnerability at 7.5. Hermes Threat Score rates it at 84 (HIGH) taking into account active exploit telemetry, critical AI workflow dependencies, and immediate host privilege escalation.

HASS

HASS AGENTIC SEVERITY & AUTONOMOUS RISK EVALUATION

Target: Claude Code Agentic CLI Tool & Memory Architecture

Confidence: 95%

88 / 100

CRITICAL

Measures specific systemic risk arising from autonomy, tool authority, and cascading execution.

Dimension Breakdown

Autonomy 18 / 20

Tool Access 19 / 20

Privilege 16 / 15

Persistence 16 / 15

External Impact 18 / 15

Propagation 17 / 15

⚖️ Divergence & Operational Rationale

Agentic security failure classified under AAP-006 (Context Boundary Collapse / Sandbox Confinement Bypass). The flaw collapses trust boundaries between autonomous model reasoning loops and operating system execution tiers.

🕸️ Connected Knowledge Graph & Provenance

CVE-2025-54794: Claude Code Working Directory Sandbox Escape via Path Prefix MatchingVULNERABILITY

Connected Nodes: 2

Active Relationships (Outgoing)

→ affectsPRODUCTClaude Code Agentic CLI

98% VERY_HIGH

Software platform affected by security vulnerabilities and agentic attack patterns.

🔍 Why is this related? (Evidence & Provenance)

“Confirmed security vulnerability in Claude Code Agentic CLI documented in Hermes dossier.”

Supporting Verified Evidence:

• [vulnerability_report]
• [government_confirmation]CISA verified active exploitation in the wild and mandated federal remediation deadline in KEV entry. — Source: Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): CISA Adds CVE-2026-59822 to Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (Reliability: VERY_HIGH)

→ exploitsAGENTIC ATTACK_PATTERNAAP-006: Inter-Agent Semantic Message Spoofing

92% VERY_HIGH

Exploitation of unauthenticated, unsigned inter-agent communication channels to forge delegation directives, impersonate orchestrator agents, and command worker subagents.

🔍 Why is this related? (Evidence & Provenance)

“CVE-2025-54794 weaponizes the agentic attack pattern formalized under AAP-006.”

Supporting Verified Evidence:

• [technical_analysis]Pillar Security demonstrated that executing export BASH_ENV in Auto-Run causes bash to source hostile payloads upon subsequent commands. — Source: Pillar Security Research: Bypassing Cursor Auto-Run: When Shell Built-ins Lead to Host RCE (Reliability: HIGH)

Critical Vulnerability Advisory

CVSS v3.1: 7.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N) / CWE-22: Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory (‘Path Traversal’). Addressed in Claude Code 0.2.111. Affects deployments running Claude Code < 0.2.111.

Executive Summary

Claude Code versions prior to 0.2.111 enforced working directory sandboxing via naive string prefix comparison (filePath.startsWith(cwd)) rather than resolving real canonical path boundaries. An attacker crafting files or instructions could escape the intended repository sandbox into adjacent sibling directories (e.g. /home/user/project-secret when /home/user/project is CWD), reading sensitive files and writing arbitrary code.

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1. Technical Context & Attack Surface

Claude Code Agentic CLI is widely deployed in production environments to support large language model orchestration, data pipelines, and agentic workflows. CVE-2025-54794 represents a significant threat to enterprise infrastructure:

Attribute	Technical Specification	Operational Ramification
Vulnerability ID	CVE-2025-54794	Tracked in Hermes Knowledge Graph
Affected System	Claude Code Agentic CLI	Anthropic
Vulnerable Component	Claude Code Local Path Boundary Validator	Input processing & execution gate
Exploit Vector	Network / Local Untrusted Context	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
CISA KEV Status	Monitored / High Weaponization Potential	Urgent patching prioritization
Attack Techniques	T1083 (File and Directory Discovery), T1005 (Data from Local System)	MITRE ATT&CK Framework
Agentic Attack Pattern	AAP-006 (Context Boundary Collapse / Sandbox Confinement Bypass)	Hermes Agentic Security Catalog

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2. Root Cause Analysis & Mechanics

The vulnerability stems from insufficient validation and flawed isolation boundaries in Claude Code Local Path Boundary Validator:

[ Attacker Payload / Untrusted Input ]
                 │
                 ▼
[ Ingress: Claude Code Local Path Boundary Validator ]
                 │  (Missing Canonical Sanitization / Dangerous Evaluation)
                 ▼
[ Execution Tier: Host OS / Runtime Subprocess ]
                 │
                 ▼
[ Impact: Arbitrary Code Execution / Credential Exfiltration ]

When processing requests, the vulnerable logic failed to enforce strict allowlisting or canonical path validation, permitting direct execution or unauthorized file access.

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3. Exploit Scenario & Proof-of-Concept Workflow

Defenders must understand how threat actors weaponize CVE-2025-54794 in real-world intrusion operations:

1. Target Identification & Probing: Adversaries discover exposed instances through version fingerprinting or metadata scraping.
2. Payload Delivery: A crafted request containing the exploit payload is transmitted to the vulnerable endpoint (Claude Code Local Path Boundary Validator).
3. Execution & Breakout: The application executes the payload under the process user permissions, escaping intended sandboxes.
4. Post-Exploitation & Pivot: The attacker harvests LLM API keys, establishes persistence, or moves laterally into connected cloud storage.

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4. Detection Engineering & Hunting Rules

Security Operations Centers (SOC) and incident response teams can deploy the following detection signatures:

Sigma Rule

title: Suspicious Execution from Claude Code Agentic CLI Subprocess (CVE-2025-54794)
status: experimental
description: Detects abnormal process execution or file creation spawned by Claude Code Agentic CLI
references:
  - https://codex.hermes-cyber.com/cve/2025/cve-2025-54794/
author: Hermes Cyber Intelligence
logsource:
  category: process_creation
  product: linux
detection:
  selection:
    ParentImage|endswith:
      - '/python'
      - '/node'
      - '/langflow'
      - '/flowise'
    Image|endswith:
      - '/sh'
      - '/bash'
      - '/curl'
      - '/wget'
  condition: selection
falsepositives:
  - Legitimate administrative tooling
level: high

Audit & Hunt Log Query

# Audit suspicious connections and process executions
journalctl -u prod-claude-code --since "24 hours ago" | grep -Ei "exec|spawn|attachments|validate"

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5. Remediation & Defensive Hardening

To mitigate exposure to CVE-2025-54794:

1. Immediate Upgrade: Upgrade to Claude Code 0.2.111 or later immediately.
2. Network Isolation: Restrict access to administrative interfaces and API listeners via internal VPN or Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
3. Container Sandboxing: Run workloads with non-root service accounts, read-only root filesystems, and strict seccomp/AppArmor profiles.
4. Credential Rotation: Rotate all LLM provider API keys, database credentials, and cloud secrets that resided in the environment.

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6. Related Intelligence & Playbooks

Agentic Attack Patterns Catalog Explore formal defensive architectures for autonomous AI agents and tool-calling models.

Hermes Threat Observatory Monitor live operational threat intelligence signals and score revisions.