{"id":"GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq","title":"Crawl4AI: LLM credential exfiltration in Docker server via request base_url and env: token resolution","summary":"Crawl4AI: LLM credential exfiltration in Docker server via request base_url and env: token resolution","severity":"high","cvss":8.2,"cwe":["CWE-200","CWE-522","CWE-918"],"vendor":"crawl4ai","product":"crawl4ai","ecosystem":"pip","affected":["crawl4ai <= 0.8.7"],"patched":["crawl4ai 0.8.8"],"published":"2026-06-16","updated":"2026-06-16","source":"GHSA","sourceUrl":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq","references":[{"url":"https://github.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/security/advisories/GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq"},{"url":"https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq"}],"tags":["ghsa","pip"],"ingestedAt":"2026-06-29T14:31:47.695Z","slug":"GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq","body":"## Overview\n\n### Summary\n\nThe Docker API server let a request control where LLM calls were sent and which environment variable an LLM token resolved from. Both could be abused to exfiltrate server-held secrets. The Docker API is unauthenticated by default.\n\n### Vector 1 - attacker base_url\n\n`/md`, `/llm`, and `/llm/job` accepted a `base_url` in the request and used it as the LLM endpoint while still attaching the server's configured provider API key. An attacker set `base_url` to a server they control and received the provider key (and any provider keys the server holds) in the inbound request.\n\n### Vector 2 - arbitrary environment variable read via `env:`\n\n`LLMConfig(api_token=\"env:NAME\")` resolved `NAME` from the server environment with `os.getenv`. Because request bodies were deserialized into `LLMConfig` (via a crawler config / extraction strategy), an attacker could set `api_token=\"env:SECRET_KEY\"` (or `env:REDIS_PASSWORD`, etc.) and, paired with an attacker `base_url`, exfiltrate that secret. Reading the server's `SECRET_KEY` enables forging authentication tokens.\n\n### Impact\n\nDisclosure of LLM provider API keys and other server secrets to an attacker-controlled endpoint; reading the JWT `SECRET_KEY` can lead to authentication bypass.\n\n### Fix\n\n- The LLM endpoints ignore a request-supplied `base_url`; the endpoint is always derived server-side from the provider name. The field is still accepted but no longer honored (no breaking 4xx).\n- `LLMConfig` refuses `env:` resolution of protected environment-variable names (names containing SECRET/PASSWORD/PRIVATE, prefixes CRAWL4AI*/AWS_SECRET*, and SECRET_KEY/REDIS_PASSWORD/TOKEN). Normal provider keys (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY) are unaffected.\n\n### Workarounds\n\n- Upgrade to the patched version.\n- Enable authentication (`CRAWL4AI_API_TOKEN`).\n- Do not place sensitive secrets in the server environment alongside provider keys.\n\n### Credits\n\n- Geo ([geo-chen](https://github.com/geo-chen)) - reported the LLM credential exfiltration via request base_url.\n- Internal security audit (Crawl4AI maintainers) - the env: arbitrary-variable read.\n\n## Affected packages\n\n- `crawl4ai <= 0.8.7`\n\n## Remediation\n\nUpgrade to a patched release:\n\n- `crawl4ai 0.8.8`","depth":"twilight","depthScore":45,"depthScoreParts":{"impact":45.1,"likelihood":0,"exploitation":0,"ransomware":0},"changes":[]}