CVE-2026-44298: Kimai: Arbitrary file read in invoice PDF renderer (admin)

Severity: medium (CVSS 4.9 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-05-08 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-22

Description

Kimai is an open-source time tracking application. From version 2.32.0 to before version 2.56.0, users with the role System-Admin (ROLE_SYSTE_ADMIN) and the permission upload_invoice_template can upload PDF invoice templates, which can call pdfContext.setOption('associated_files', ...) inside the sandboxed Twig render. This is forwarded to mPDF's SetAssociatedFiles(), whose writer calls file_get_contents($entry['path']) during PDF output and embeds the bytes as a FlateDecode stream in the PDF. Any file readable by the PHP worker is returned to the attacker inside the rendered invoice. This issue has been patched in version 2.56.0.

Affected products

kimai: from 2.32.0 before 2.56.0 — fixed in 2.56.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: kimai 2.56.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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