AWS API MCP File Access Restriction Bypass

Description

Description

The AWS API MCP Server is an open source Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that enables AI assistants to interact with AWS services and resources through AWS CLI commands. It provides programmatic access to manage your AWS infrastructure while maintaining proper security controls.

This server acts as a bridge between AI assistants and AWS services, allowing you to create, update, and manage AWS resources across all available services. The server includes a configurable file access feature that controls how AWS CLI commands interact with the local file system. By default, file operations are restricted to a designated working directory (workdir), but this can be configured to allow unrestricted file system access (unrestricted) or to block all local file path arguments entirely (no-access).

Description: Improper Protection of Alternate Path exists in the no-access and workdir feature of the AWS API MCP Server versions >= 0.2.14 and < 1.3.9 on all platforms may allow the bypass of intended file access restriction and expose arbitrary local file contents in the MCP client application context.

To remediate this issue, users should upgrade to version 1.3.9.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-03-17 20:33:15 UTC
Updated
2026-06-08 23:15:16 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-03-17 20:33:15 UTC
NVD published
2026-03-16

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.02% 5.52%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
5.5 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:R)
A real person has to do something—click, install, enable—otherwise it doesn’t land.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
6.8 4.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
Attacker needs local access on the target system.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:N)
No additional preconditions are required beyond normal reachability.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:P)
A user has to participate (for example click/open/approve).
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:H)
High confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:N)
No integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:N)
No availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-424 Improper Protection of Alternate Path

Affected packages (2)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
pip awslabs.aws-api-mcp-server >= 0.2.14, < 1.3.9 1.3.9
pip awslabs-aws-api-mcp-server >= 0.2.14, < 1.3.9 1.3.9

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence