n8n CVE-2026-72762

Exploitation requires the attacker to hold an active n8n account with the ability to create or trigger workflow executions - this is a PR:L (low privilege) requirement, not unauthenticated. The Edit Image node must be available and not excluded via NODES_EXCLUDE; excluding n8n-nodes-base.editImage via that environment variable fully blocks this specific attack path. The CVSS 4.0 metrics AC:H and AT:P indicate that additional attack conditions must be present beyond network access, but the advisory does not enumerate these explicitly - this is a gap in the available intelligence. The file write's reachable impact is bounded by the operating system permissions of the n8n process user; if n8n runs as a non-privileged user, writable paths are constrained to that user's accessible filesystem. No user interaction from a victim is required beyond the attacker's own workflow execution. The vulnerability does not require a specific n8n configuration beyond the default installation with the Edit Image node enabled.

The CVSS 4.0 score of 7.7 with vector AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L reflects a real but access-gated threat: exploitation requires authenticated workflow execution rights, elevated attack complexity, and the presence of additional preconditions (AT:P), suggesting this is not trivially mass-exploitable. EPSS data was not provided, and this CVE is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog, both of which temper urgency compared to fully unauthenticated or KEV-listed flaws. That said, the high vulnerable-system impact ratings (VC:H/VI:H/VA:H) correctly capture the worst-case outcome - a workflow user who can craft a malicious Edit Image node invocation may overwrite SSH authorized_keys, cron jobs, or application configuration files, ultimately achieving persistence or privilege escalation on the host. In practice, even a mid-sized development team in sopot operating a self-hosted n8n instance for internal ETL pipelines should treat this as an urgent patch because n8n deployments routinely grant workflow execution rights to multiple developers, and the barrier from 'workflow user' to 'arbitrary file write' is a single crafted node invocation. The key limiting factor is PR:L: organizations that restrict n8n access to fully trusted operators and rotate credentials tightly face substantially reduced real-world risk. The AC:H and AT:P ratings suggest the exploit path requires specific knowledge of the image library's format handling and possibly specific deployment conditions - precise details of these preconditions are not fully enumerated in the advisory, which is a gap. SSVC signals: exploitation status is 'none' (no public exploit), automatable assessment is uncertain pending technical detail, and technical impact is 'total' on the vulnerable component.

An authenticated n8n user with workflow execution rights creates or modifies a workflow containing an Edit Image node and sets the output format parameter to a crafted value that the underlying image library interprets as a path directive, redirecting the file write to a sensitive location such as the n8n host's SSH authorized_keys file or a cron directory. Upon executing the workflow, the image library writes attacker-controlled bytes to the target path without n8n intercepting or restricting the operation. No public exploit code has been identified at time of analysis, but the fix commit is public, making independent exploit derivation feasible for a motivated researcher.