Monitor vulnerabilities like this one. Sign up free to get alerted when software you use is affected.
10.0

zeptoclaw Allows Malicious Commands via Command Injection

GHSA-5wp8-q9mx-8jx8
Summary

The zeptoclaw tool allows attackers to bypass its security checks by injecting malicious code or using special characters. This could allow an attacker to execute unauthorized commands. To protect against this, update to the latest version of zeptoclaw or review your use of the tool to ensure you are not using any vulnerable features.

What to do
  • Update zeptoclaw to version 0.6.2.
Affected software
VendorProductAffected versionsFix available
– zeptoclaw <= 0.6.1 0.6.2
Original title
zeptoclaw has Shell allowlist-blocklist bypass via command/argument injection and file name wildcards
Original description
### Summary
[zeptoclaw](https://github.com/qhkm/zeptoclaw) implements a allowlist combined with a blocklist to prevent malicious shell commands in [src/security/shell.rs](https://github.com/qhkm/zeptoclaw/blob/v0.5.8/src/security/shell.rs). However, even in the `Strict` mode, attackers can completely bypass all the guards from allowlist and blocklist:

- to bypass the `allowlist`, command injection is enough, such as `;`, `$()` etc.
- to bypass the `REGEX_BLOCKED_PATTERNS`, argument injection is enough, such as the `python3 -P -c "..."`
- to bypass the `LITERAL_BLOCKED_PATTERNS`, file name wildcards can do the work, such as `cat /etc/pass[w]d`

### Details
In code [src/security/shell.rs#L218-L243](https://github.com/qhkm/zeptoclaw/blob/fe2ef07cfec5bb46b42cdd65f52b9230c03e9270/src/security/shell.rs#L218-L243), one can see the allowlist only checks the first token and thus makes command injection possible.
```rust
// Allowlist check (runs after blocklist)
if self.allowlist_mode != ShellAllowlistMode::Off && !self.allowlist.is_empty() {
let first_token = command
.split_whitespace()
.next()
.unwrap_or("")
.to_lowercase();
// Strip path prefix (e.g. /usr/bin/git -> git)
let executable = first_token.rsplit('/').next().unwrap_or(&first_token);
if !self.allowlist.iter().any(|a| a == executable) {
match self.allowlist_mode {
ShellAllowlistMode::Strict => {
return Err(ZeptoError::SecurityViolation(format!(
"Command '{}' not in allowlist",
executable
)));
}
ShellAllowlistMode::Warn => {
tracing::warn!(
command = %command,
executable = %executable,
"Command not in allowlist"
);
}
ShellAllowlistMode::Off => {} // unreachable
}
```
`!self.allowlist.is_empty()` makes the empty allowlist overlook the allowlist check, if it is in `ShellAllowlistMode::Strict` mode, empty allowlist should direct reject all the commands.

As the code in [src/security/shell.rs#L18-L70](https://github.com/qhkm/zeptoclaw/blob/fe2ef07cfec5bb46b42cdd65f52b9230c03e9270/src/security/shell.rs#L18-L70), we can find the `REGEX_BLOCKED_PATTERNS` only apply `\s+` in between the command and arguments, making argument injection possible, and the `LITERAL_BLOCKED_PATTERNS` just uses specific file name, totally overlooking the file name wildcards:
```rust
const REGEX_BLOCKED_PATTERNS: &[&str] = &[
// Piped shell execution (curl/wget to sh/bash)
r"curl\s+.*\|\s*(sh|bash|zsh)",
r"wget\s+.*\|\s*(sh|bash|zsh)",
r"\|\s*(sh|bash|zsh)\s*$",
// Reverse shells
r"bash\s+-i\s+>&\s*/dev/tcp",
r"nc\s+.*-e\s+(sh|bash|/bin)",
r"/dev/tcp/",
r"/dev/udp/",
// Destructive root operations (various flag orderings)
r"rm\s+(-[rf]{1,2}\s+)*(-[rf]{1,2}\s+)*/\s*($|;|\||&)",
r"rm\s+(-[rf]{1,2}\s+)*(-[rf]{1,2}\s+)*/\*\s*($|;|\||&)",
// Format/overwrite disk
r"mkfs(\.[a-z0-9]+)?\s",
r"dd\s+.*if=/dev/(zero|random|urandom).*of=/dev/[sh]d",
r">\s*/dev/[sh]d[a-z]",
// System-wide permission changes
r"chmod\s+(-R\s+)?777\s+/\s*$",
r"chmod\s+(-R\s+)?777\s+/[a-z]",
// Fork bombs
r":\(\)\s*\{\s*:\|:&\s*\}\s*;:",
r"fork\s*\(\s*\)",
// Encoded/indirect execution (common blocklist bypasses)
r"base64\s+(-d|--decode)",
r"python[23]?\s+-c\s+",
r"perl\s+-e\s+",
r"ruby\s+-e\s+",
r"node\s+-e\s+",
r"\beval\s+",
r"xargs\s+.*sh\b",
r"xargs\s+.*bash\b",
// Environment variable exfiltration
r"\benv\b.*>\s*/",
r"\bprintenv\b.*>\s*/",
];

/// Literal substring patterns (credentials, sensitive paths)
const LITERAL_BLOCKED_PATTERNS: &[&str] = &[
"/etc/shadow",
"/etc/passwd",
"~/.ssh/",
".ssh/id_rsa",
".ssh/id_ed25519",
".ssh/id_ecdsa",
".ssh/id_dsa",
".ssh/authorized_keys",
".aws/credentials",
".kube/config",
// ZeptoClaw's own config (contains API keys and channel tokens)
".zeptoclaw/config.json",
".zeptoclaw/config.yaml",
];
```

### PoC
```rust
#[test]
fn test_allowlist_bypass() {
let config =
ShellSecurityConfig::new().with_allowlist(vec!["git"], ShellAllowlistMode::Strict);
assert!(config.validate_command("/usr/bin/git status; python -P -c 'import os; os.system(\"rm -rf /\")'; cat /etc/pass[w]d").is_ok());
}
```

### Impact
Unauthorized command execution.

### Credit
[@zpbrent](https://github.com/zpbrent)
ghsa CVSS3.1 10.0
Vulnerability type
CWE-77 Command Injection
Published: 5 Mar 2026 · Updated: 7 Mar 2026 · First seen: 6 Mar 2026