critical

CVE-2026-14535

fickling: Fickling: Arbitrary code execution via pickle deserialization bypass

Published 4 Jul 2026Modified 25 Oct 2026CWE 693

In the Trivy database since at least 24 Oct 2026, 07:11 UTCWhen it arrived before that build is not recorded.

Severity by source

NVD9.8CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Red Hat8.8CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Trivy's own label is CRITICAL. Rated critical by NVD. Rated lower by Red Hat (high).

Description

In Trail of Bits fickling versions up to and including 0.1.11, the UnsafeImportsML analysis pass unconditionally calls AnalysisContext.shorten_code(node) on every import node it inspects, regardless of whether the import is flagged as unsafe. This call registers the shortened code representation in the shared AnalysisContext.reported_shortened_code set. When the MLAllowlist analysis pass subsequently runs, it calls the same shorten_code() method, receives already_reported=True for every import, and executes a continue statement that skips its allowlist check entirely. This renders MLAllowlist dead code for all imports — it never evaluates whether an import is in the ML allowlist or not. The MLAllowlist pass was designed to catch imports of modules outside the known-safe ML ecosystem (torch, numpy, transformers, etc.) that slip past the UnsafeImports denylist. With MLAllowlist inoperative, any standard library module not in the UNSAFE_IMPORTS denylist can be invoked via pickle deserialization while fickling's check_safety() returns LIKELY_SAFE. The fickling.load() API chains check_safety() into pickle.loads() as an explicit security gate, meaning a LIKELY_SAFE verdict causes the payload to be deserialized and executed. The root cause is shared mutable state between independently-correct analysis passes — UnsafeImportsML works as designed in isolation, MLAllowlist works as designed in isolation, but the shared reported_shortened_code set causes UnsafeImportsML to poison MLAllowlist's deduplication logic.

Affected packages and fixed versions

No package source lists this ID.

References

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