MONAI through 1.6.0 PersistentDataset Remote Code Execution via Pickle Cache

In MONAI 1.6.0, PersistentDataset (monai/data/dataset.py) explicitly rejects the combination track_meta=True with weights_only=True, forcing users who cache MetaTensors (the default tensor type in MONAI >= 1.0) to run torch.load(hashfile, weights_only=False). Related cache helpers in monai/data/utils.py also call pickle.loads on cached content and derive cache keys with hashlib.md5. As a result, a local user with write access to a shared or world-writable cache_dir (e.g. /tmp/monai_cache, HPC scratch, ~/.cache/monai) can place a malicious pickle file that is deserialized the next time another user's MONAI pipeline reads the cache, resulting in arbitrary code execution in that user's context. All released versions of the monai pip package are affected; no patched version is available as of the advisory.

Source published

27 Sep 2026 01:28:37 UTC

Source modified

28 Sep 2026 13:56:03 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

Source terms

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CVSS 4.0 · 8.5 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

CVSS 3.1 · 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H