browse-mcp is a Playwright-based headless-browser MCP server for MCP-capable agents. Prior to 0.8.2, browser_download writes a fetched response body to join(save_dir, filename) without validating the caller-controlled save_dir, while browser_save_state and browser_load_state honor a caller-controlled path unchanged. A malicious MCP client, or an autonomous agent steered by indirect prompt injection on a visited page, can choose an arbitrary save_dir or state path and a URL whose response body becomes attacker-controlled file contents, allowing writes to any path the process can reach, including ~/.bashrc, autostart entries, or cron files, and potentially leading to host code execution. The force_fetch fallback also uses a raw fetch() that bypasses the BROWSE_MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS origin fence. This issue is fixed in version 0.8.2.
Advisories
Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-m9mq-7m7q-xc6p browse-mcp has an arbitrary file write via unconfined download and state paths
Fixes

Solution

No solution given by the vendor.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 16:45:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description browse-mcp is a Playwright-based headless-browser MCP server for MCP-capable agents. Prior to 0.8.2, browser_download writes a fetched response body to join(save_dir, filename) without validating the caller-controlled save_dir, while browser_save_state and browser_load_state honor a caller-controlled path unchanged. A malicious MCP client, or an autonomous agent steered by indirect prompt injection on a visited page, can choose an arbitrary save_dir or state path and a URL whose response body becomes attacker-controlled file contents, allowing writes to any path the process can reach, including ~/.bashrc, autostart entries, or cron files, and potentially leading to host code execution. The force_fetch fallback also uses a raw fetch() that bypasses the BROWSE_MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS origin fence. This issue is fixed in version 0.8.2.
Title browse-mcp: Arbitrary file write via unconfined download and state paths
Weaknesses CWE-22
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 8.6, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}


Projects

Sign in to view the affected projects.

cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: GitHub_M

Published:

Updated: 2026-08-25T16:28:07.368Z

Reserved: 2026-06-16T23:11:20.213Z

Link: CVE-2026-55557

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-08-25T17:17:32.357

Modified: 2026-08-25T17:17:32.357

Link: CVE-2026-55557

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

No data.

Weaknesses