< Back to Feed // 12 MAY 2026 // Maliq Barnard

CVE-2026-42866 — Path Traversal in Tookie OSINT

A path traversal in Tookie OSINT's output writers let a crafted username write scan results to arbitrary filesystem paths. High severity, fixed after disclosure.

CVE: CVE-2026-42866 GHSA: GHSA-rp68-wfv6-3cq3 Severity: High CWE: CWE-22 (Path Traversal), CWE-73 (External Control of File Name or Path) Affected: Tookie OSINT v4.1 (commit 2841f43) Fixed: After disclosure via GHSA Credit: smoke-wolf (Maliq Barnard)


The bug

Tookie OSINT is a Python CLI for username enumeration across social platforms. You pass -u username and it writes results to disk as .txt, .csv, or .json.

The output writers in modules/modules.py use the username directly in the file path:

open(f"{user}.json")

No sanitization. Put ../ in the username and the output file lands wherever you want. The forced file extension limits what you can overwrite, but .json configs and .txt logs in predictable locations are fair game. The -U bulk mode reads one username per line, so a poisoned usernames file gives you N writes in one invocation.

Reproduction

$ cd /tmp/empty
$ tookie-osint -u "../../../tmp/tookie_pwned" -o json --skipheaders
$ ls -la /tmp/tookie_pwned.json
-rw-r--r-- ... 5101 bytes /tmp/tookie_pwned.json

Fix

Strip path separators from the username before building the filename, or resolve with os.path.realpath() and refuse to write outside a configured output directory.

Timeline

Date Event
April 23, 2026 Found and verified against commit 2841f43 (v4.1)
April 23, 2026 Filed via GitHub Security Advisory (private)
April 24, 2026 GHSA published, CVE assigned
VIEWS: 13

Suggested Intelligence

Analyst Notes