HIGH

GHSA-6xcw-7xm6-48c6

n8n: Expression Sandbox Escape via Shared Builtin Tampering and Code-Printer Injection Leads to Code Execution

Quick fix

GHSA-6xcw-7xm6-48c6 — n8n: upgrade to the fixed version with the command below.

npm install n8n@1.123.76

Details

## Impact

Two stages of expression code generation built source text by calling the global `JSON.stringify` at generation time: the compiler when printing synthetic string literals, and the isolate bridge when interpolating a timezone value into its per-evaluation wrapper. An expression that replaced that global therefore changed the code that was subsequently generated and executed, turning literal data into executable source. The patch renders both code-generation stages through a reference captured at module load, so a later change to global state cannot alter the generated source.

This vulnerability only affects instances running the legacy expression engine. The `vm` expression engine, which is the default on the patched releases, is not affected.

## Patches

The issue has been fixed in n8n versions 1.123.76, 2.37.7, and 2.38.2. Users should upgrade to one of these versions or later to remediate the vulnerability.

## Workarounds

If upgrading is not immediately possible, administrators should consider the following temporary mitigations: - Set the environment variable `N8N_EXPRESSION_ENGINE=vm` to switch to the vm expression engine, which is not affected by this vulnerability. - Restrict n8n instance access to fully trusted users only. - Ensure the n8n process runs under a dedicated low-privilege OS user account to limit the impact of any command execution.

These workarounds do not fully remediate the risk and should only be used as short-term mitigation measures.