Flowise Path Traversal Vulnerability in Vector Store Implementations

A path traversal vulnerability has been identified in Flowise versions prior to 3.1.0, specifically within the Faiss and SimpleStore vector store implementations. These versions accept unsanitized basePath parameters from authenticated users. Exploitation of this vulnerability allows attackers with valid API tokens to write vector store data to arbitrary locations on the server filesystem. This could potentially lead to code execution or data exfiltration.

Impact

Exploitation of this vulnerability allows authenticated attackers to write files to arbitrary locations on the server filesystem, overwrite existing files, and potentially execute code by writing to web-accessible directories or startup scripts. Additionally, there is a risk of data exfiltration by writing to network-mounted filesystems.

Reproduction

To reproduce this vulnerability, an authenticated user with a valid API token can send a request to the Flowise application, specifying a basePath that traverses directories (e.g., using relative path components) to write files to an arbitrary location on the server. This can be done using the Flowise UI to create a Document Store, process chunks, and then exploit the path traversal vulnerability by inserting vector store data with a crafted basePath that exploits the traversal flaw.

Remediation

Users are advised to update Flowise to version 3.1.0 or later, where this vulnerability has been patched.