Vulnerabilities & Exploits

vm2’s Sandbox Breakouts Multiply Beyond One Fix

vm2 is acting less like a single bug and more like a broken containment boundary. The patch-for-one-CVE mindset fails here, because the disclosure has expanded into a cluster of sandbox escapes across older releases, and any reachable escape turns tenant-supplied JavaScript into host-level code execution inside the Node.js app.

The latest report lists a dozen critical flaws, including CVE-2026-24118, CVE-2026-24120, CVE-2026-24781, CVE-2026-26332, CVE-2026-26956, CVE-2026-43997, and others, affecting vm2 versions through 3.11.1. Maintainers have released vm2 3.11.2, which shifts this from a single-exploit notice to broad patching across multiple release lines.

For teams using vm2 to isolate untrusted code, the blast radius is the host application and whatever it can already reach: secrets, files, and network access. The practical risk is that older fixes did not close every escape hatch, so a partially patched deployment can still be one sandboxed script away from full compromise.

3 sources · May 8

CVE-2026-22709

NVD KEV

CVSS 9.8 CRITICAL: vm2 is an open source vm/sandbox for Node.js. EPSS 1% (68th percentile).

CVE-2026-26956

NVD KEV

CVSS 9.8 CRITICAL: vm2 is an open source vm/sandbox for Node.js. EPSS 0.9% (56th percentile).

Timeline

Sources

Part of the PlainSec briefing for 2026-05-07

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