GHSA-r28c-9q8g-f849

## Vulnerability Details **File**: `lib/previous-map.js` **Line**: 87-98 (`loadFile`), 129-144 (`loadMap`) ### Root Cause PostCSS auto-detects a `/*# sourceMappingURL=... */` comment inside the CSS text it is asked to parse and, unless the caller explicitly passes `map: false`, attempts to load that path from disk as a "previous source map." This happens on every `postcss.parse()` / `postcss().process()` call by default (opt-out, not opt-in). `loadMap()` builds the candidate path via `join(dirname(opts.from), annotation)`, where `annotation` is the raw, attacker-controlled string from the CSS comment. `path.join()` normalizes but does not sandbox `..` segments, so a `../../../` prefix walks the resolved path outside the intended directory. If `opts.from` is not set at all, the annotation is used completely unmodified — an absolute path in the CSS comment is read verbatim. 8.5.12 already fixed a strictly worse variant of this (any file, any extension, could be read) by requiring the resolved path to end in `.map` (`loadFile()`). That fix did not address the traversal itself, only the target extension. Since the `join(dirname(file), map)` logic has existed unchanged since PostCSS 8.0.0 (Feb 2020), any file ending in `.map` remains readable through this path in the current release (8.5.16). Once loaded, `MapGenerator.isMap()` treats the mere presence of a loaded "previous map" as an implicit request to generate `result.map`, even when the caller never set the `map` option. If the loaded map has a `sourcesContent` field (common for maps emitted by bundlers/transpilers), that content is merged into `result.map` and returned to the caller — disclosing the traversed-to file's content to whoever supplied the CSS. ### Attack Scenario 1. A service accepts user-submitted CSS and runs it through PostCSS to lint/format/transform it, e.g. `postcss().process(userCss, { from: '/app/uploads/user123/input.css', to: '/app/uploads/user123/output.css' })` — idiomatic usage; `map`