CVE-2026-44466: Zed: Allowlist Bypass via Bash Arithmetic Expansion in Terminal Tool Permissions

Synopsis

An authentication-bypass and privilege-escalation flaw exists in the terminal tool permission system of the Zed code editor (versions before 0.229.0). An attacker who can influence commands evaluated by Zed's terminal tool can embed arbitrary commands inside bash arithmetic expansion syntax ($((...))) nested within an allowlisted command such as echo, causing those commands to execute outside the intended permission boundary. Successful exploitation gives the attacker full read, write, and execution capability within the scope of the running editor process. HarborGuard tracks this advisory and will make a patched-image rebuild available the moment an upstream fix is published.

HarborGuard Coverage

Exploit Conditions

• Network reachabilityNot required

  The attack vector is local; the attacker needs an existing shell or process on the host rather than network access to the service.

• AuthenticationNot required

  No credentials or account are required to exploit this vulnerability; the CVSS vector specifies PR:N.

• Victim interactionRequired

  A user must take an action (such as opening a crafted project or evaluating a crafted command in the terminal tool) for the payload to execute; the CVSS vector specifies UI:R.

• Attack complexityDetail

  Attack complexity is low, meaning the exploit is reliable and does not depend on race conditions, specific memory layouts, or other variable environmental factors.

Blast Radius

• The attacker executes arbitrary commands outside the terminal tool's allowlist, bypassing the permission boundary entirely.
• Confidential files readable by the Zed process (source code, credentials, environment variables, SSH keys) are exposed.
• The attacker can modify or delete files and repository contents within the scope of the editor process.
• The running Zed process and any dependent services can be crashed or made unavailable.