tinacms is vulnerable to arbitrary code execution
Date: 2025-12
Affected: npm/@tinacms/graphql, npm/@tinacms/cli, npm/tinacms
Attack vector: rce
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: High
CVE: CVE-2025-68278
CWE: CWE-94

### Summary ```tinacms``` uses the ```gray-matter``` package in an insecure way allowing attackers that can control the content of the processed markdown files, e.g., blog posts, to execute arbitrary code. ### Details The ```gray-matter``` package executes by default the code in the markdown file's front matter. ```tinacms``` does not change this behavior when process markdown file, e.g., by passing a custom engine property for js/javascript in the options object. ### PoC 1. Create a tinacms app using the cli/documentation: ``` npx create-tina-app@latest ``` 2. Modify one of the blog posts to contain the following front matter: ```js ---js { "title": "Pawned" + console.log(require("fs").readFileSync("/etc/passwd").toString()) } --- ``` 3. Start the tinacms server, e.g., with ```npm run dev``` 4. Observe the console of the server printing the password file, showing that attackers can execute arbitrary commands. ### Impact RCE: attackers can execute arbitrary JavaScript code on the server hosting tinacms. ### Feasibility Potential attack scenarios can be executed like this: Companies often have technical writers as contractors. These contractors produce md files, which they send over email or upload in a shared cloud folder. Developers download these files and upload them in ```tinacms```'s content folder. While this example might appear speculative or contrived, a general observation is that developers would be very surprised to find out that processing untrusted markd


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Architectural layers (MAESTRO):