CVE-2026-55609: Sublinear tools allow unrestricted file paths

Tracking: CVE-2026-55609
Severity: High

Who is affected

The disclosure covers three package lines:

Package	Affected	First fixed release
consciousness-explorer	Before 1.1.2	1.1.2
sublinear-time-solver	Before 1.6.0	1.6.0
Rust crate sublinear	Before 0.2.0	0.2.0

How the attack works

MCP export_state and import_state accept unrestricted file paths. Related vector save/load operations have the same trust-boundary problem. A caller able to invoke them can read or overwrite files accessible to the process.

Overwrites can corrupt application state or sensitive configuration. Code execution would depend on another component subsequently interpreting the overwritten file; it is not an automatic consequence of every write.

What to do

1. Upgrade all applicable package lines to the fixed releases or later.
2. Update integrations for the new basename-only file contract. Configure CONSCIOUSNESS_EXPLORER_STATE_DIR or SUBLINEAR_SOLVER_VECTOR_DIR as appropriate.
3. Review state and vector operations for absolute paths, traversal, or unexpected files. Check overwritten configuration and restore from trusted copies where needed.

Sources

• Original advisory or incident report