Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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ReconAuthenticate to Flowintel with low-privilege account
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DeliveryCraft note containing LaTeX file-read directive
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ExploitTrigger PDF export for the note
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InstallPandoc passes raw LaTeX to XeLaTeX
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C2XeLaTeX reads target local file
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ExecuteDownload exported PDF
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ImpactExtract exfiltrated file contents
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A01:2025 - Broken Access Control
ASVS 5.0
V5 - File Handling Path canonicalization, traversal prevention
MITRE ATT&CK
2 techniques across 2 tactics: Discovery, Collection The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires a valid Flowintel account with permission to create or edit notes and invoke the PDF export function. The attacker must be able to submit note content containing raw LaTeX block-level directives - the old escaping logic targeted special characters but did not strip \input{} or similar constructs. The XeLaTeX process must have read access to the target file; files outside the service account's permissions cannot be exfiltrated. Exploitation is limited by: authentication (PR:L - at minimum a low-privilege Flowintel account is required), the need to trigger PDF export rather than docx export (the docx path is a separate Pandoc invocation and is also now restricted), and server process filesystem permissions. There is no requirement for a non-default configuration - any Flowintel instance with PDF export enabled and the Pandoc/XeLaTeX toolchain present is vulnerable in its pre-patch state. |
| Impact | The CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N) scores 7.1, indicating a network-accessible, low-complexity attack requiring only a low-privilege account with no user interaction. Confidentiality impact is high on the vulnerable system; integrity and availability are unaffected, confirming this is a read-only server-side file exfiltration. No CISA KEV listing and no EPSS data are provided, so active exploitation is unconfirmed. The PR:L requirement meaningfully limits exposure - an external unauthenticated attacker cannot exploit this directly - but any authenticated Flowintel user, including low-trust analysts or compromised accounts, qualifies. The real-world severity is elevated above the score because Flowintel is deployed in security operations contexts where the server likely stores high-value data (threat intelligence, case notes, API keys, private credentials). The well-known nature of LaTeX injection for file read lowers the bar for exploitation once an attacker has credentials. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An authenticated Flowintel analyst creates or edits a note containing a raw LaTeX directive such as \verbatiminput{/etc/shadow} or \input{/app/config/secrets.py}. When PDF export is triggered for that note, Pandoc passes the raw LaTeX through to XeLaTeX, which reads the referenced file and renders its contents into the PDF. The attacker downloads the resulting PDF and recovers the server-side file contents. No public POC is known, but the technique is well-established and reproducible without specialized tools. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 27, 2026
Flowintel's PDF export pipeline passes attacker-controlled note content to Pandoc with the raw_tex extension enabled, allowing authenticated users to inject XeLaTeX directives such as \input{} or \verbatiminput{} that cause the server to read arbitrary local files and embed their contents into the exported PDF. Any authenticated user with note-editing access can exploit this to exfiltrate sensitive server-side files - credentials, keys, or intelligence data stored on the host. No public exploit has been identified at time of analysis, but the LaTeX injection-to-file-read technique is well-documented and requires no specialized tooling.
RemediationAI
Update Flowintel to a revision incorporating both patch commits 16f618fa36a72c4c5ca3ff0abf7dd67455318ef1 and 2ba9700a5473223639575050bda607f498add7c6 from https://github.com/flowintel/flowintel; operators running from source should pull the patched main branch, while those awaiting a tagged release should monitor the upstream repository. The fix disables Pandoc's raw_tex and raw_html extensions via the format string markdown-raw_tex-raw_html, eliminating the injection surface at the parser level without removing PDF export functionality. If immediate patching is not possible, the most effective compensating control is to disable or restrict access to the PDF export endpoint to a minimal set of highly trusted users, accepting the workflow impact; this removes the attack surface entirely. Restricting the Flowintel service account's filesystem permissions to only necessary directories reduces the blast radius of exploitation but does not prevent the vulnerability from being triggered. Generic firewall rules provide no mitigation since the attack is authenticated and application-layer.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Flowintel is a case management platform used by security operations teams. It uses Pandoc as a markdown-to-document converter and XeLaTeX as the PDF rendering engine. The root cause (CWE-22, Path Traversal) stems from Pandoc's raw_tex and raw_html extensions being active by default, which pass raw LaTeX commands from the markdown source through unmodified to XeLaTeX. LaTeX's file-inclusion primitives (\input, \include, \verbatiminput) then cause XeLaTeX to read server-side files and inline their contents into the rendered PDF. The original mitigation - the smart_escape_for_markdown_to_latex function visible in the diff - attempted character-level escaping but failed to block block-level LaTeX constructs. The fix restricts Pandoc's format string to markdown-raw_tex-raw_html, disabling both extensions at the parser level rather than trying to sanitize output. CPE cpe:2.3:a:flowintel:flowintel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* indicates all tracked versions are affected.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Network-reachable export endpoint requires a low-privilege authenticated account (PR:L); no integrity or availability impact; confidentiality is high due to arbitrary local file read.
Primary rating from Vendor (CIRCL).
CVSS VectorVendor: CIRCL
DescriptionCVE.org
Affected versions of Flowintel allow attacker-controlled note content to be processed by Pandoc and XeLaTeX during PDF export in a way that can cause local files on the Flowintel server to be read and incorporated into the generated export.
Executive ViewAI
Flowintel's PDF export feature contains a file-disclosure vulnerability (CVE-2026-81659) that allows any authenticated user with note-editing permissions to extract sensitive files from the application server, including credentials, encryption keys, and intelligence data. While no public exploit has been identified at time of analysis, the underlying LaTeX injection technique is well-documented. This represents a significant data breach risk for organizations relying on Flowintel to store sensitive information.
Apply vendor patch.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Path traversal exploits occur when applications use user-controlled input to construct file system paths without proper validation.
Persistent session hijacking is possible in Flowintel version 3.3.0 and later because the application fails to invalidat
Remote code execution in Flowintel's alerts settings update endpoint (versions >= 3.3.0) allows an authenticated high-pr
Privilege escalation in Flowintel's administrative user-edit API allows an organization administrator to modify full adm
Remote code execution via log path traversal in Flowintel 3.3.0 and later is achievable by an authenticated administrato
Broken object-level authorization across Flowintel task endpoints allows authenticated editor-level users to perform una
Log injection in Flowintel versions 3.3.0 and later allows unauthenticated remote attackers to forge arbitrary log lines
Stored XSS via Vue template injection in FlowIntel allows an authenticated low-privilege user to persist malicious Vue i
Server-side request forgery in FlowIntel up to version 3.3.0 allows a low-privileged authenticated user to coerce the ap
Insufficient authorization on the Flowintel /my_assignment/user API endpoint allows any authenticated API user to retrie
Stored cross-site scripting in Flowintel case notes allows an authenticated low-privileged user to inject malicious Java
Stored cross-site scripting in Flowintel's calendar view (versions >= 3.3.0) allows an authenticated user with case-crea
Stored cross-site scripting in Flowintel's MISP timeline renderer allows an authenticated low-privileged attacker to inj
EUVD-2026-66995
GHSA-9jjj-7qhf-c5f9
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB