Crawl4AI: LLM credential exfiltration in Docker server via request base_url and env: token resolution
Key facts
- Attack vector
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- Privileges required
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- User interaction
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- Attack complexity
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- Impact type
- Information disclosure
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Fixed
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from GitHub. Impact type from CWE-200.
Summary
### Summary The Docker API server let a request control where LLM calls were sent and which environment variable an LLM token resolved from. Both could be abused to exfiltrate server-held secrets. The Docker API is unauthenticated by default. ### Vector 1 - attacker base_url `/md`, `/llm`, and `/llm/job` accepted a `base_url` in the request and used it as the LLM endpoint while still attaching the server's configured provider API key. An attacker set `base_url` to a server they control and received the provider key (and any provider keys the server holds) in the inbound request. ### Vector 2 - arbitrary environment variable read via `env:` `LLMConfig(api_token="env:NAME")` resolved `NAME` from the server environment with `os.getenv`. Because request bodies were deserialized into `LLMConfig` (via a crawler config / extraction strategy), an attacker could set `api_token="env:SECRET_KEY"` (or `env:REDIS_PASSWORD`, etc.) and, paired with an attacker `base_url`, exfiltrate that secret. Reading the server's `SECRET_KEY` enables forging authentication tokens. ### Impact Disclosure of LLM provider API keys and other server secrets to an attacker-controlled endpoint; reading the JWT `SECRET_KEY` can lead to authentication bypass. ### Fix - The LLM endpoints ignore a request-supplied `base_url`; the endpoint is always derived server-side from the provider name. The field is still accepted but no longer honored (no breaking 4xx). - `LLMConfig` refuses `env:` resolution of protected environment-variable names (names containing SECRET/PASSWORD/PRIVATE, prefixes CRAWL4AI*/AWS_SECRET*, and SECRET_KEY/REDIS_PASSWORD/TOKEN). Normal provider keys (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY) are unaffected. ### Workarounds - Upgrade to the patched version. - Enable authentication (`CRAWL4AI_API_TOKEN`). - Do not place sensitive secrets in the server environment alongside provider keys. ### Credits - Geo ([geo-chen](https://github.com/geo-chen)) - reported the LLM credential exfiltration via request base_url. - Internal security audit (Crawl4AI maintainers) - the env: arbitrary-variable read.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | crawl4ai (PyPI) | before 0.8.8 | 0.8.8 | Patch available | GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq |
- crawl4ai (PyPI) Vendor— Affected before 0.8.8 Fixed in 0.8.8 Patch available GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq
Remediation
- Fix · GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq crawl4ai (PyPI) Fixed in 0.8.8 Advisory →
Timeline
- 2026-10-03 Threatist record created from GHSA-f989-c77f-r2cq
References
Sources
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