Executive brief
A vulnerability exists in the duartium papers-mcp-server, a tool used to manage and search research paper collections. An attacker can use specially crafted search terms to trick the server into reading or writing files outside of its intended storage folder. This could allow an unauthorized person to overwrite system files or access sensitive data stored on the server's host machine.
Technical details
A path traversal vulnerability (CWE-22) exists in the `search_papers` function within `src/main.py` of the duartium papers-mcp-server. The application takes a user-provided `topic` string and joins it with a base directory path using `os.path.join` after only performing minor sanitization (lowercasing and replacing spaces). Because it fails to filter directory traversal sequences like `../`, a remote attacker can manipulate the `topic` argument to escape the intended `papers/` directory. This allows the attacker to create directories and read/write `papers_info.json` files in arbitrary locations on the filesystem, provided the service has the necessary permissions. As of the advisory date, no patch has been released by the maintainer.
Affected products
- duartium papers-mcp-server 0.1.0
Timeline
- 2026-04-10: disclosed: Vulnerability reported to vendor via GitHub issue.
- 2026-04-28: advisory: NVD/VulDB advisory published.