Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessPublish malicious Hugo theme/module
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DeliveryVictim imports theme and builds site
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ExploitSass import fallback resolves out-of-root path
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ExecutionFile contents compiled into published CSS
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ImpactAttacker reads leaked data from site
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 the victim to build a Hugo site (version before v0.167.0) that includes an attacker-controlled theme or module, AND that uses the css.Sass transpilation pipeline where the attacker's stylesheet contains a malicious @import or @use target (relative, absolute, or symlinked) resolving outside the project root. Key LIMITING factors: the attacker cannot act remotely - a developer or CI process must voluntarily add the untrusted theme/module and run the build (UI:A, AV:L); only files readable by the build process's user can be exfiltrated; the leaked content must be retrievable from the attacker's reach via the published site CSS; and sites that use only first-party or vetted themes are not exposed. |
| Impact | Signals are consistent and point to a MODERATE, build-time information-disclosure risk rather than an urgent remote-exploitation priority. The CVSS 4.0 vector (AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H) correctly models this as a LOCAL attack requiring victim interaction: exploitation occurs when a developer or CI pipeline builds a Hugo site that incorporates an attacker-supplied theme or module, not via a network-facing service. Confidentiality impact is HIGH (arbitrary readable file contents can be leaked) while integrity and availability are None, matching a pure path-traversal file-read. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public POC are present in the input, so exploitation status is 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis.' There is no SSVC decision data provided. The chief risk nuance: PR:N is accurate (the attacker needs no account), but UI:A is load-bearing - the attack is entirely gated on a victim voluntarily importing an untrusted theme/module and running a build, which places this in the supply-chain/trust-decision category rather than mass-exploitable. This is a real but conditional issue: prioritize for teams that build Hugo sites from third-party themes, deprioritize for those using only first-party/vetted themes. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker publishes a seemingly legitimate Hugo theme or module containing a stylesheet whose @import or @use target is a relative, absolute, or symlinked path pointing outside the project root (e.g. to a secrets or config file). A developer adds the theme and runs |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 12, 2026
Path traversal in Hugo's css.Sass transpilation pipeline (all versions before v0.167.0) lets a malicious theme or module reference files outside the project root via relative, absolute, or symlinked @import/@use targets and have their contents compiled into the published site CSS. Exploitation is build-time rather than remote: a developer or CI job must voluntarily add the untrusted theme/module and run a build that uses css.Sass, and only files readable by the build process's user can be disclosed - a moderate information-disclosure risk rather than an urgent remote-execution priority. No public exploit identified at time of analysis and no confirmed active exploitation (CISA KEV); the vendor has released a fix in v0.167.0.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: upgrade to Hugo v0.167.0 or later, which constrains Sass import fallback resolution so that @import/@use targets cannot escape the project root; see the advisory at https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/security/advisories/GHSA-3jfr-vjcq-7jvf for the exact fix and any release notes. If an immediate upgrade is not possible, compensate by reducing what an untrusted theme can reach: only build themes/modules you have reviewed or vendored, pin module versions and verify Go module checksums so an upstream theme cannot silently swap in a malicious stylesheet, grep theme SCSS/CSS for @import/@use entries containing '..', leading '/' absolute paths, or symlinked partials before adding them, and remove or replace those targets rather than trusting them. Run the Hugo build as a dedicated unprivileged user inside a container or sandbox whose filesystem view is limited to the project checkout, so that even a successful traversal cannot reach secrets such as ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, CI environment files, or /etc/passwd; the trade-off is extra tooling and the risk that legitimate build steps needing broader filesystem access will break. As a last resort for sites with no untrusted inputs, avoid enabling css.Sass (pre-render or pre-minify stylesheets outside Hugo), which eliminates the vulnerable code path at the cost of losing Hugo's built-in Sass pipeline. CI environments are the highest-value targets for this issue: scope build tokens and secrets so that files leaked into published CSS are short-lived or non-sensitive, and audit recent build artifacts for unexpected CSS content.
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
The root cause is CWE-22 (Improper Limitation of a Pathname to a Restricted Directory / Path Traversal) in Hugo's css.Sass implementation, which drives the Sass/SCSS transpiler used to process stylesheets. Sass import resolution performs a fallback search: when an @import or @use target is not found relative to the importing file, the compiler walks up directories and also honours absolute paths and symlinks. In Hugo before v0.167.0 this fallback was not constrained to the project root, so a stylesheet shipped inside an attacker-controlled theme or Hugo Module could name a target such as ../../etc/passwd, an absolute path, or a symlink pointing outside the project tree, and the compiler would read the file and emit its contents into the generated CSS that Hugo publishes. The affected component is identified by CPE cpe:2.3:a:gohugoio:hugo:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*; the vendor advisory is GHSA-3jfr-vjcq-7jvf. Per our independent assessment the effective CVSS:3.1 vector is AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N - confidentiality impact only, no integrity or availability effect, local attack vector, no privileges required on the build host, but requiring user action (the developer adding the theme/module and running the build). The published CVSS 4.0 score is 6.7 with AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A, which is consistent with that picture.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Build-time attack so AV:L; attacker needs no account (PR:N) but victim must import the theme and build (UI:R); only file reads, hence C:H, I:N, A:N.
Primary rating from Vendor (VulnCheck).
CVSS VectorVendor: VulnCheck
Lifecycle Timeline
2DescriptionCVE.org
Hugo before v0.167.0 contains a path traversal vulnerability in css.Sass that allows malicious themes or modules to read files outside the project root through the Sass compiler's import fallback. Attackers can ship stylesheets with relative, absolute, or symlinked @import or @use targets to compile readable files into the published site CSS.
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.
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EUVD-2026-98157
GHSA-454m-4vr5-7p63
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Exploit-DB