What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-81849: Path traversal in the aws:downloadContent plugin in amazon-ssm-agent

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.9% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-28 · updated 2026-08-31
• Weakness: CWE-23

Description

Improper limitation of a pathname to a restricted directory in the aws:downloadContent plugin in amazon-ssm-agent before 3.3.4515.0 might allow an authenticated remote user whose ssm:SendCommand permission is restricted to the AWS-DownloadContent document, to write arbitrary files outside the intended download directory with root privileges, via crafted object keys in the S3 source the document is directed to retrieve. This issue may lead to arbitrary code execution as root if specific sensitive files are overwritten. To remediate this issue, customers should upgrade amazon-ssm-agent to version 3.3.4515.0 or later.

Affected products

• amazon-ssm-agent: before 3.3.4515.0 — fixed in 3.3.4515.0

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: amazon-ssm-agent 3.3.4515.0. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://aws.amazon.com/security/security-bulletins/2026-091-aws/
• https://github.com/aws/amazon-ssm-agent/releases/tag/3.3.4515.0

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