CVE-2026-41282
Projectdiscovery Nuclei 3.0.0 – 3.8.0
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:NCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-41282 is a medium-severity Code Injection (CWE-94) vulnerability in Projectdiscovery Nuclei. Its CVSS base score is 4.0 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059); ranked at the 16th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SI-10 (Information Input Validation) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary
Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.
CVE-2026-41282 is a DSL expression injection vulnerability (CWE-94) in ProjectDiscovery Nuclei versions 3 before 3.8.0. The issue arises in configurations using the -env-vars option for multi-step templates when scanning untrusted targets, which is not the default setup. Published on 2026-04-20, it carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 4.0 (AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:N/A:N), indicating medium severity with network accessibility, high attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction required, changed scope, and low confidentiality impact.
Attackers can exploit this over the network without authentication by targeting Nuclei instances configured with -env-vars for multi-step templates against untrusted endpoints. Exploitation enables code injection via malicious DSL expressions, potentially leading to limited disclosure of confidential information within the scoped impact.
ProjectDiscovery has addressed the vulnerability in Nuclei 3.8.0 through patches in GitHub commits 6c803c74d193f85f8a6d9803ce493fd302cad0eb and d2217320162d5782ca7cb95bef9dda17063818f3, as well as pull requests 7221 and 7321. Security practitioners should upgrade to version 3.8.0 or later and avoid using -env-vars against untrusted targets. Additional details are in the advisory at https://github.com/projectdiscovery/nuclei/security/advisories/GHSA-jm34-66cf-qpvr.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-23795
Vulnerability Data
ProjectDiscovery Nuclei 3 before 3.8.0 allows DSL expression injection. This affects use of -env-vars for multi-step templates against untrusted targets (not the default configuration).
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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V1.3.1
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation finds code paths that accept and execute externally influenced strings.
Input validation directly stops untrusted data from being used to construct executable code without neutralization.
Least privilege limits the damage an injected code fragment can perform once executed.
Requiring documented secure development standards and tools enforces use of safe code-generation APIs and escaping.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
PR.PS-06's SDLC practices directly target injection flaws via secure coding and testing (mostly), yet as a single broad outcome it leaves many code-generation specifics unaddressed (partial).
PR.DS-10 protects runtime data confidentiality/integrity but has no bearing on neutralizing externally influenced input during code generation, so neither direction shows any preventive effect.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Banning unapproved code samples and unauthenticated web services, combined with secure-coding standards and SAST, prevents the dynamic generation or inclusion of attacker-supplied code.