Vulnerability · Published Jun 25, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2026-50549Cursor Desktop sandbox escape via symlink and failed path canonicalization
Critical 9.3
In plain English
A critical-severity security flaw in cursor from cursor. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 1.0% (higher than 63% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
Cursor is a code editor built for programming with AI. Prior to 3.0, Cursor runs agent terminal commands in a sandbox by default. Before a Write, the agent canonicalizes the target path to confirm it stays inside the workspace, but when canonicalization fails it falls back to the original path and writes without approval. A malicious agent can create an in-workspace symlink that points outside the workspace and force canonicalization to fail — either because the target does not exist or because read permission is removed from the path — so the agent writes through the symlink to an arbitrary location without approval. A malicious agent could write arbitrary files outside the workspace under the user's privileges. This enables non-sandboxed Remote Code Execution — for example by overwriting the cursorsandbox helper so later commands run unsandboxed — with no user interaction beyond a benign prompt. This vulnerability is fixed in 3.0.
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-59 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
References
- https://github.com/cursor/cursor/security/advisories/GHSA-3v8f-48vw-3mjx x_refsource_CONFIRM