CVE-2025-13437: Google Zx

Medium severity, CVSS 5.6. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

When zx is invoked with --prefer-local=<path>, the CLI creates a symlink named ./node_modules pointing to <path>/node_modules. Due to a logic error in src/cli.ts (linkNodeModules / cleanup), the function returns the target path instead of the alias (symlink path). The later cleanup routine removes what it received, which deletes the target directory itself. Result: zx can delete an external <path>/node_modules outside the current working directory.

Affected products

• Google Zx: version 8.8.4 only

Published 2025-11-20. Last modified 2026-06-17.