CVE-2026-41208: Paperclip: Privilege Escalation via Agent-Controlled workspaceStrategy.provisionCommand Leading to OS Command Execution

Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.6% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2026-04-23 · updated 2026-10-26
Weakness: CWE-78

Description

Paperclip is a Node.js server and React UI that orchestrates a team of AI agents to run a business. Versions of @paperclipai/server prior to 2026.416.0 contain a privilege escalation vulnerability that allows an attacker with an Agent API key to execute arbitrary OS commands on the Paperclip server host. An attacker with an agent credential can escalate privileges from the agent runtime to the Paperclip server host. The vulnerability occurs because agents are allowed to update their own adapterConfig via the /agents/:id API endpoint. The configuration field adapterConfig.workspaceStrategy.provisionCommand is later executed by the server runtime. As a result, an attacker controlling an agent credential can inject arbitrary shell commands which are executed by the Paperclip server during workspace provisioning. This breaks the intended trust boundary between agent runtime configuration and server host execution, allowing a compromised or malicious agent to escalate privileges and run commands on the host system. This vulnerability allows remote code execution on the server host. @paperclipai/server version 2026.416.0 fixes the issue.

Affected products

paperclipai @paperclipai/server: before 2026.416.0 — fixed in 2026.416.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: paperclipai @paperclipai/server 2026.416.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-41208 or the next vulnerability affects your stack