GHSA-28q4-xrqh-9479

Duplicate Advisory: vm2: NodeVM node:-prefixed negative builtin deny bypass exposes child_process

Published

2026-09-17

Modified

2026-10-01

Sources

github-advisory

Summary

## Duplicate Advisory This advisory has been withdrawn because it is a duplicate of GHSA-8686-vhfx-7r3j. This link is maintained to preserve external references. ## Original Description vm2 through 3.11.6 does not normalize `node:`-prefixed builtin specifiers when evaluating user-supplied negative (deny) entries in a NodeVM wildcard require policy. Although NodeVM strips the `node:` prefix during require() resolution, negative wildcard entries are matched by exact string comparison against the canonical builtin names, so a policy such as `new NodeVM({ require: { builtin: ['*', '-node:child_process'] } })` fails to deny the canonical `child_process` module. Sandboxed code can therefore obtain the host `child_process` builtin via `require('child_process')` or `require('node:child_process')`, gaining references to process-spawning APIs such as execSync and spawn, which is equivalent to host command-execution capability for untrusted sandbox code. Fixed in vm2 3.11.7. (Suggested title: "vm2 before 3.11.7: NodeVM builtin deny-list bypass via node:-prefixed specifiers exposes child_process")

Affected packages

Remediation: No patched version is listed by GitHub.

References

• https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-28q4-xrqh-9479