Cognition before 0.13.0 contains an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability due to defaulting its agent sandbox backend to local execution and shipping no authentication on its REST/SSE API. Attackers can create a session via POST /sessions and post a message via POST /sessions/{id}/messages without credentials, causing the Deep Agents ReAct loop to run attacker-directed shell commands through the local shell backend, resulting in remote code execution as the server process.

Project Subscriptions

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Advisories

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Fixes

Solution

Upgrade to Cognition 0.13.0 or later. Version 0.13.0 refuses the local sandbox backend unless COGNITION_ALLOW_UNSAFE_LOCAL_EXECUTION is explicitly set to true, and that setting defaults to false.


Workaround

No workaround given by the vendor.

History

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 18:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Cognition before 0.13.0 contains an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability due to defaulting its agent sandbox backend to local execution and shipping no authentication on its REST/SSE API. Attackers can create a session via POST /sessions and post a message via POST /sessions/{id}/messages without credentials, causing the Deep Agents ReAct loop to run attacker-directed shell commands through the local shell backend, resulting in remote code execution as the server process.
Title Cognition < 0.13.0 Unauthenticated RCE via Local Shell Backend
Weaknesses CWE-1188
CWE-306
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 9.8, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H'}

cvssV4_0

{'score': 9.2, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N'}


Projects

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cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: VulnCheck

Published:

Updated: 2026-10-19T18:22:57.431Z

Reserved: 2026-10-12T15:52:36.682Z

Link: CVE-2026-109437

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-10-19T19:17:19.807

Modified: 2026-10-19T19:17:19.807

Link: CVE-2026-109437

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-10-19T19:30:02Z

Weaknesses