CVE-2026-45833: A code injection vulnerability in version 0

Synopsis

A code injection vulnerability in ChromaDB (version 0.4.17 and later) allows an authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on the server. The attack is reachable over the network and requires only a low-privilege account with UPDATE_COLLECTION permission; no victim interaction is needed. Successful exploitation gives the attacker full remote code execution on the host running ChromaDB. No fix version has been published yet; HarborGuard tracks this advisory and will make a patched-image rebuild available as soon as upstream ships a fix.

HarborGuard Coverage

Exploit Conditions

• Network reachabilityRequired

  The ChromaDB API endpoint is exposed over the network, so the attacker must be able to reach the service via HTTP from a remote host.

• AuthenticationRequired

  A low-privilege account holding the UPDATE_COLLECTION permission is sufficient; no admin credentials are needed.

• Victim interactionNot required

  The attacker sends a crafted API request directly to the server; no user action or social engineering is involved.

• Attack complexityDetail

  Exploitation is reliable and condition-free; the attacker simply supplies a malicious model repository path with trust_remote_code set to true in a standard API call.

Blast Radius

• The attacker executes arbitrary code in the context of the ChromaDB server process, with full access to its runtime environment.
• All data stored in ChromaDB collections is readable, including embeddings, metadata, and any documents indexed by the application.
• The attacker can modify or delete collection data, corrupting the vector store and any downstream application that depends on it.
• If the ChromaDB process runs with elevated host permissions or shares a network with other services, the attacker can pivot further into the surrounding infrastructure.