CVE-2026-23520: Arcane has a Command Injection in Arcane Updater Lifecycle Labels Enables RCE

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-23520 is a critical (CVSS 9.1) vulnerability in arcane. EPSS estimates a 1.85% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 79% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 15-01-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 15-01-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

Arcane provides modern docker management. Prior to 1.13.0, Arcane has a command injection in the updater service. Arcane’s updater service supported lifecycle labels com.getarcaneapp.arcane.lifecycle.pre-update and com.getarcaneapp.arcane.lifecycle.post-update that allowed defining a command to run before or after a container update. The label value is passed directly to /bin/sh -c without sanitization or validation. Because any authenticated user (not limited to administrators) can create projects through the API, an attacker can create a project that specifies one of these lifecycle labels with a malicious command. When an administrator later triggers a container update (either manually or via scheduled update checks), Arcane reads the lifecycle label and executes its value as a shell command inside the container. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.13.0.

• CWE-78Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS CommandThe product constructs all or part of an OS command using externally-influenced input from an upstream component, but it does not neutralize or incorrectly neutralizes special elements that could modify the intended OS command before it is sent to a downstream component.