CVE-2026-50549 PUBLISHED

Cursor Desktop sandbox escape via symlink and failed path canonicalization

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 04.06.2026 Published: 25.06.2026 Updated: 25.06.2026

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.

Metrics

CVSS 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
CVSS Score: 9.3

Product Status

Vendor cursor
Product cursor
Versions
  • Version < 3.0 is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-59: Improper Link Resolution Before File Access ('Link Following') CWE