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2026-02-04 — n8n Expression Escape vulnerability leading to RCE (GHSA-6cqr-8cfr-67f8)

Signal: GitHub Security Advisory published/updated 2026-02-04.

Impact (per advisory): An authenticated user who can create/modify workflows can abuse crafted expressions in workflow parameters to trigger system command execution on the host running n8n.

Product: n8n (npm package: n8n)

Why this matters

n8n often runs with broad network access (internal APIs, SaaS tokens, secrets) and may be deployed on long-lived hosts. If an attacker can reach an account allowed to author workflows, they may be able to convert that access into host-level RCE.

Who is exposed

  • Instances where users (or compromised accounts) can create or edit workflows.
  • Multi-tenant/shared n8n where workflow authoring is delegated beyond a small trusted admin set.

Fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: - 1.123.17 (1.x line) - 2.5.2 (2.x line)

Temporary mitigations (if you cannot upgrade immediately)

  • Restrict workflow create/edit permissions to fully trusted users only.
  • Run n8n in a hardened environment:
  • least-privilege OS user
  • container/VM isolation
  • restrict outbound network egress (only what workflows require)
  • restrict access to local metadata endpoints and cloud instance credentials

Detection / hunt ideas

  • Audit who has workflow create/edit permissions; review recent role changes.
  • Review workflow history for newly-added expressions or unusual nodes.
  • On the host: look for unexpected child processes spawned by n8n (shells, curl/wget, package managers).

References