Description
FreeScout is a free help desk and shared inbox built with PHP's Laravel framework. A patch bypass vulnerability for CVE-2026-27636 in FreeScout 1.8.206 and earlier allows any authenticated user with file upload permissions to achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) on the server by uploading a malicious .htaccess file using a zero-width space character prefix to bypass the security check. The vulnerability exists in the sanitizeUploadedFileName() function in app/Http/Helper.php. The function contains a Time-of-Check to Time-of-Use (TOCTOU) flaw where the dot-prefix check occurs before sanitization removes invisible characters. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.8.207.
Problem types
CWE-434: Unrestricted Upload of File with Dangerous Type
Product status
References
www.ox.security/blog/freescout-rce-cve-2026-28289/
github.com/...escout/security/advisories/GHSA-5gpc-65p8-ffwp
github.com/...ommit/f7bc16c56a6b13c06da52ad51fd666546b40818f