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CWE-506Weakness · CWE-506

CVE-2026-48159

CRITICAL · 9.3 CVSS v4.0 Developing Published 2026-08-10
No fix yet
No fix has been published. The vendor has not shipped a fixed release or patch. You remain exposed.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click 11 days old

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
use-reducer-async is a React useReducer with async actions. Between 2026-05-18 16:29:52 and 2026-05-19 15:26:07, the default branch contained malicious commits da72edbde5705efcec6c62e0a3dcb73687b78dc8 through df07d5711458d8b46e11dd7afaaa21e88cafabfb that executed remote attacker-controlled code on developer machines during `npm install`. The commits were removed by force-push, but local clones, forks, and direct-SHA URLs may still contain them, and `npm install` against an affected checkout will still execute the code today. The package was not published to npm. `src/install.js` was added and wired into the `postinstall` script. It fetched a JavaScript payload from an attacker-controlled HTTPS endpoint (configurable via an environment variable), disabled TLS verification, and evaluated the response as code with `require` available. Execution was deliberately skipped on CI and cloud/serverless environments, targeting developer workstations. The second-stage payload was attacker-hosted and cannot be reconstructed. Assume full compromise of anything reachable from a Node process with the user's permissions. Those who ran `npm install` against an affected checkout on a developer machine on or after 2026-05-18 16:29:52 should treat the machine as compromised, rotate every credential the machine could reach, audit account activity since 2026-05-18 16:29:52, and clean local clones.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis · low confidence
Developing — this CVE was published recently and its authoritative NVD entry is still being established, so we're holding a technical summary until the source data settles rather than publish something unreliable. Re-checking after 2026-08-24.

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
Authentication
X
User interaction
None
Scope
X

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Recommended fix High confidence

Re-clone from the official repository after 2026-05-19 15:26:07 when the malicious commits were removed. There is no fixed release version; the fix is the removal of the malicious commits via force-push.

  1. 1. Identify affected repositories: Search all local clones, forks, and cached versions of the use-reducer-async package for commits between da72edbde5705efcec6c62e0a3dcb73687b78dc8 and df07d5711458d8b46e11dd7afaaa21e88cafabfb
  2. 2. Run `git log --all` and `git reflog` to examine history for any commits from 2026-05-18 to 2026-05-19 that may have been force-pushed away
  3. 3. If the malicious commits (da72edbde5705efcec6c62e0a3dcb73687b78dc8 through df07d5711458d8b46e11dd7afaaa21e88cafabfb) or the file `src/install.js` with postinstall script are present, immediately delete the local clone and re-clone from a trusted source
  4. 4. Verify the fresh clone does not contain `src/install.js` or any postinstall script in package.json
  5. 5. If you previously ran `npm install` on an affected checkout between 2026-05-18 16:29:52 and 2026-05-19 15:26:07, treat the machine as fully compromised: rotate all credentials (API keys, tokens, passwords, SSH keys) accessible from that Node.js environment, audit account activity since that date, and re-image the machine if possible
  6. 6. Check for any environment variable `USE_REDUCER_ASYNC_PAYLOAD_URL` or similar that may have been set, as this was used to configure the attacker-controlled endpoint
  7. 7. Audit any projects that depend on use-reducer-async (even as transitive dependency) for the same compromise indicators

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

No vendor fix exists The vendor has not published a patch for this.

There is no version to upgrade to and no patch to apply. Every affected install stays exposed until the vendor ships a fix — or somebody else builds one.

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

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Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-48159 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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