---
id: CVE-2026-58403
aliases:
  - GHSA-c3wq-j5vh-68rc
title: 'Hugo: Symlink confinement bypass in os.ReadFile'
summary: 'Hugo: Symlink confinement bypass in os.ReadFile'
severity: medium
vendor: gohugoio
product: github.com/gohugoio/hugo
ecosystem: go
affected:
  - 'github.com/gohugoio/hugo >= 0.123.0, < 0.163.1'
patched:
  - github.com/gohugoio/hugo 0.163.1
published: '2026-06-19'
updated: '2026-07-08'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-c3wq-j5vh-68rc'
references:
  - url: 'https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/security/advisories/GHSA-c3wq-j5vh-68rc'
  - url: 'https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo'
tags:
  - osv
  - go
epss: 0.00475
epssPercentile: 0.40257
ingestedAt: '2026-07-09T18:56:36.309Z'
---

## Overview

**Affected versions:** v0.123.0 through v0.163.0. Earlier versions are not affected.
**Fixed in:** v0.163.1.
**Severity:** Medium. Requires the attacker to be able to place (or convince a site author to place) a symlink inside a mounted directory — for example, inside a locally-vendored theme under `themes/`. Themes mounted as Go modules from GitHub have symlinks stripped on download and are not affected. Multi-directory walks (e.g. content/asset walking) were not affected either; only direct lookups via `resources.Get` followed symlinks.

**Description.** Hugo's virtual filesystem is designed so that files under a mount cannot reach outside the mount tree. A regression introduced in v0.123.0 caused `RootMappingFs.statRoot` to call `Stat` (which follows symlinks) instead of `Lstat`, so a direct `os.ReadFile "somefile"` where `somefile` was a symlink pointing outside the mount would return the target's contents. This effectively let a symlink planted inside a theme or local mount read arbitrary files reachable to the user running `hugo`.

## Affected packages

- `github.com/gohugoio/hugo >= 0.123.0, < 0.163.1`

## Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

- `github.com/gohugoio/hugo 0.163.1`