CVE-2026-50135
Gohugo Hugo 0.123.0 – 0.161.1
Raw vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/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:XSummary
CVE-2026-50135 is a medium-severity Link Following (CWE-59) vulnerability in Gohugo Hugo. Its CVSS base score is 6.9 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Data from Local System (T1005); ranked at the 19th 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 AC-3 (Access Enforcement) and CM-7 (Least Functionality) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-41922
Vulnerability Data
Hugo is a static site generator. From 0.123.0 to 0.161.1, a regression made RootMappingFs.statRoot use Stat (follows symlinks) instead of Lstat , so a direct resources.Get of a symlink pointing outside its mount returned the target's contents — letting a…
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symlink planted in a local mount (e.g. a vendored themes/ theme) read arbitrary files accessible to the Hugo user. Go-module themes from GitHub (symlinks stripped) and directory walks were unaffected. Fixed in 0.162.0.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Vulnerability enables unauthorized local file reads via symlink traversal in Hugo mounts, directly facilitating data collection from the local system.
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Access Enforcement directly blocks unauthorized traversal of symlinks outside the intended mount by enforcing the security policy that only files within the declared resource root may be read via resources.Get.
Information in Shared System Resources prevents the symlink from exposing the target file's contents to the Hugo process by isolating the mount's namespace from the broader filesystem.
Least Functionality restricts the Hugo binary from following symlinks outside its declared mounts, limiting the attack surface introduced by the regression in RootMappingFs.
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.
Secure SDLC practices directly require code to validate paths and avoid unsafe link following.
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.
Security testing can detect link-following flaws before release.
Secure SDLC practices can mandate link-resolution checks and canonicalization before file access.
Application security requirements can explicitly require safe handling of symbolic links and path traversal.
Secure architecture principles include input validation and safe file-access design patterns.
Secure coding standards directly address canonicalization and symlink attacks during implementation.
Access-control rules can limit which files are reachable, reducing exposure to malicious links.