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CRITICAL9.2

GHSA-67c8-pqhq-4rmx

piscina: Prototype-pollution gadget in ThreadPool.options allows RCE via execArgv / loadBalancer / env

Quick fix

GHSA-67c8-pqhq-4rmx — piscina: upgrade to the fixed version with the command below.

npm install piscina@5.3.2

Details

### Summary

A prototype-pollution gadget in `ThreadPool.options` allows an attacker who can pollute `Object.prototype` to execute arbitrary code in Piscina worker threads, invoke arbitrary functions during task scheduling, or inject environment variables into workers. The root cause is that `ThreadPool.options` is created as a plain object inheriting from `Object.prototype`, so any option without an explicit default in `kDefaultOptions` can be supplied via the prototype chain.

### Details

In `src/index.ts` the `ThreadPool` constructor builds the resolved options object as a plain object:

```ts this.options = { ...kDefaultOptions, ...options, filename, maxQueue: 0 } ```

Because this object has `Object.prototype` as its prototype, reads for properties that are not own properties of the object and are not present in `kDefaultOptions` fall back to `Object.prototype`. This means a prototype-pollution primitive (e.g. from a vulnerable `merge()` or `JSON.parse` merge elsewhere in the application) can inject values for `execArgv`, `env`, `loadBalancer`, `argv`, `workerData`, `resourceLimits`, `niceIncrement`, `closeTimeout`, `recordTiming`, `stricterFIFO`, `workerHistogram`, and `trackUnmanagedFds`.

The most serious gadget is `execArgv`, which is passed directly to `new Worker(..., { execArgv })`. An attacker can set `Object.prototype.execArgv = ['--require', '/tmp/attacker.js']`, causing every worker to preload and execute the attacker-controlled module on startup.

This issue survived the fix for **GHSA-x9g3-xrwr-cwfg / CVE-2026-55388** ("Prototype Pollution Gadget → RCE via inherited options.filename"). That advisory hardened the `Piscina` constructor's `filename` read and `run()`'s `filename`/`name` reads, but `ThreadPool.options` itself was not created with a null prototype. The same class of attack is therefore still possible against any option without an explicit default in `kDefaultOptions`.

### PoC

```js import { resolve } from 'node:path' import Piscina from 'piscina'

Object.prototype.execArgv = ['--require', '/tmp/attacker.js']

const pool = new Piscina({ filename: resolve(import.meta.dirname, 'worker.js'), minThreads: 1, maxThreads: 1, })

await pool.run(1) ```

`/tmp/attacker.js` is executed in the worker on startup. A full reproduction repository with `execArgv`, `loadBalancer`, and `env` vectors is available at https://github.com/Fcmam5/piscina-pp-poc.

### Impact

- **Remote Code Execution**: via `execArgv` (arbitrary `--require` module preloaded in every worker on spawn). - **Arbitrary code execution in the main thread**: via `loadBalancer`, an attacker-supplied function that is called during task scheduling. - **Environment/CLI option injection**: via `env`, which is passed to each worker constructor. - **Denial of Service / unexpected behavior**: via other reachable options such as `workerData`, `resourceLimits`, `niceIncrement`, `closeTimeout`, `recordTiming`, etc.

Anyone using Piscina in an application where `Object.prototype` can be polluted (e.g. through a dependency with a prototype-pollution vulnerability) is impacted.

Are you affected?

Enter the version of the package you're using.

Affected packages

npm/piscina
Introduced in: 5.0.0Fixed in: 5.3.2
Fixnpm install piscina@5.3.2
npm/piscina
Introduced in: 0Fixed in: 4.9.4
Fixnpm install piscina@4.9.4
npm/piscina
Introduced in: 6.0.0-rc.1Fixed in: 6.0.0-rc.5
Fixnpm install piscina@6.0.0-rc.5

References