GitHub Advisoryadvisory · PyPI
GHSA-ffg3-p8fm-mjx2 RestrictedPython guard hooks can be shadowed via positional-only arguments
HIGH
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-55830
- Ecosystem
- PyPI
- Packages
- RestrictedPython
- Severity
- High
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:H/UI:R/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L
- Weaknesses
- CWE-184
- Reviewed
- 2026-08-28
Affected packages
• PyPI RestrictedPython: < 8.3 → fixed in 8.3
Description
Impact
RestrictedPython rewrites sensitive operations to go through guard hooks. Attribute access becomes `_getattr_(obj, name)`, item access becomes `_getitem_(obj, key)`, writes go through `_write_`, and print goes through `_print_`. The embedding application supplies these hooks to enforce its policy.
Argument-name validation rejects these protected names for regular arguments, `*args`, `**kwargs`, and keyword-only arguments, but it misses positional-only arguments (the ones before `/`). So a function like:
```python
def f(_getattr_=evil, /):
return o.x
```
makes `_getattr_` a local that shadows the policy hook, and the rewritten access calls `evil` instead. The same works for `_getitem_`, `_write_`, and `_print_`. Shadowing `_print_` can also be used to capture the internal `_getattr_` hook that RestrictedPython passes in.
The result is that sandboxed code can bypass the access policy the embedding application relies on. In applications that also handle sandbox-controlled objects unsafely (for example serializing them with pickle), this primitive can be chained further, up to remote code execution. That part depends on the embedding application, but the underlying guard bypass is in RestrictedPython.
Proof of concept
On an unpatched RestrictedPython this prints `shadowed` and an empty `calls` list, meaning the policy `_getattr_` never ran. With the fix, `compile_restricted` rejects the code.
```python
from RestrictedPython import compile_restricted
from RestrictedPython.Guards import safe_globals, safer_getattr
calls = []
def policy_getattr(obj, name, default=None):
calls.append(name) # the real guard records every access
return safer_getattr(obj, name, default)
src = """
def f(o, _getattr_=lambda obj, name: "shadowed", /):
return o.x
"""
code = compile_restricted(src, "", "exec") # currently compiles, should be rejected
g = dict(safe_globals)
g["_getattr_"] = policy_getattr
exec(code, g)
class O:
x = "secret"
print(g"f")) # -> "shadowed" (attacker's local was used)
print(calls) # -> [] (policy _getattr_ never ran)
```
Patches
The fix validates positional-only argument names the same way the other argument kinds are already validated. It will ship in the next release.
Workarounds
None other than upgrading. If you cannot upgrade immediately, reject any submitted code whose function or lambda definitions use positional-only parameters with leading-underscore names before compiling.
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-55830 RestrictedPython is a tool that helps to define a subset of the Python language which allows to provide a program input into a trusted… vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-184 Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs weakness
References
- https://github.com/zopefoundation/RestrictedPython/security/advisories/GHSA-ffg3-p8fm-mjx2 web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-55830 advisory
- https://github.com/zopefoundation/RestrictedPython/commit/3737596ec9f28c34a073cc845bd2f4c0a80cb671 web
- https://github.com/zopefoundation/RestrictedPython package