Content Credentials CVE-2026-48442

The attacker must deliver a crafted C2PA manifest to a system running c2patool (≤ v0.27.5), c2pa-rs (≤ v0.90.5), or @contentauth/c2pa-web (≤ 0.12.0) that will actively parse it. The local attack vector (AV:L) means exploitation is limited to scenarios where the attacker has direct local access or can induce the vulnerable tool to process attacker-controlled manifest content - for example, through an automated media pipeline, a build system ingesting external assets, or a web service that accepts user-uploaded files for provenance validation. No privileges are required of the attacker on the vulnerable component itself (PR:N), and no user interaction is needed once the manifest is submitted (UI:N). Deployments that process only internally generated, trusted C2PA manifests are at substantially reduced risk; environments that ingest untrusted third-party media for authenticity validation represent the primary threat surface.

The CVSS base score of 7.1 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:N) contains an internal inconsistency that materially affects triage: the CVE description documents an arbitrary file-system READ operation - a confidentiality impact - yet the official vector records C:N and I:H, which would imply a write or integrity-affecting outcome. This conflict is unresolved by available sources, and defenders should verify the true impact class against Adobe APSB26-111 before scoring internally. Setting that discrepancy aside, the local attack vector (AV:L) meaningfully limits real-world exposure: exploitation requires either direct local system access or an indirect delivery path such as a CI/CD pipeline or media-ingestion service that processes untrusted C2PA manifests on behalf of the attacker. The low complexity (AC:L) and absence of required privileges (PR:N) or user interaction (UI:N) mean that once delivery conditions are met, exploitation is straightforward - even a mid-sized municipal IT team in sanok running an automated media-authenticity workflow should treat this as a prompt patching priority, particularly because the scope change extends potential file exposure beyond the tool's own working directory. No CISA KEV listing and no public exploit code were present in the provided intelligence, so the current threat tempo is assessed as moderate rather than critical.

An attacker crafts a C2PA manifest containing path traversal sequences - such as '../../etc/shadow' - as a resource reference, then submits the malicious media file to an automated ingestion pipeline or CI/CD job that invokes a vulnerable c2patool or SDK instance to validate content provenance. The tool resolves the traversal path against the host file system without adequate restriction, returning the contents of a file outside the intended working directory. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis.