Reference page — cumulative record through Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC. Reference pages update as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record.
trailofbits fickling — Fickling MLAllowlist analysis pass rendered inoperative by shared mutable state in AnalysisContext.shorten_code()
AV AC PR UI S C I A CVSS EPSS %ile KEV
N L N N U H H H 9.8 .0033 26.2 —
AFFECTED
Product Versions Fixed
fickling unspecified 0.1.12
TIMELINE
Jul 3 Reserved by BombadilSystems
Jul 4 EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-14535 (trailofbits fickling). Public exploit reference added.
Jul 4 Published (CNA: BombadilSystems)
Description
In Trail of Bits fickling versions up to and including 0.1.11, the UnsafeImportsML analysis pass unconditionally calls AnalysisContext.shorten_code(node) on every import node it inspects, regardless of whether the import is flagged as unsafe. This call registers the shortened code representation in the shared AnalysisContext.reported_shortened_code set. When the MLAllowlist analysis pass subsequently runs, it calls the same shorten_code() method, receives already_reported=True for every import, and executes a continue statement that skips its allowlist check entirely. This renders MLAllowlist dead code for all imports — it never evaluates whether an import is in the ML allowlist or not. The MLAllowlist pass was designed to catch imports of modules outside the known-safe ML ecosystem (torch, numpy, transformers, etc.) that slip past the UnsafeImports denylist. With MLAllowlist inoperative, any standard library module not in the UNSAFE_IMPORTS denylist can be invoked via pickle deserialization while fickling's check_safety() returns LIKELY_SAFE. The fickling.load() API chains check_safety() into pickle.loads() as an explicit security gate, meaning a LIKELY_SAFE verdict causes the payload to be deserialized and executed. The root cause is shared mutable state between independently-correct analysis passes — UnsafeImportsML works as designed in isolation, MLAllowlist works as designed in isolation, but the shared reported_shortened_code set causes UnsafeImportsML to poison MLAllowlist's deduplication logic.
Lifecycle
Complete event history — 3 events, chronological
| Date | Event | Detail |
|---|
| July 3, 2026 | Reserved | Reserved by BombadilSystems |
| July 4, 2026 | EXPLOIT PUBLISHED | EXPLOIT PUBLISHED — CVE-2026-14535 (trailofbits fickling). Public exploit reference added. |
| July 4, 2026 | Published | Published (CNA: BombadilSystems) |
Affected
Affected products and packages — 1 row
| Vendor | Product / Package | Ecosystem | Version introduced | Fixed |
|---|
| trailofbits | fickling | PyPI | — | 0.1.12 |
About this page
This is a reference page, not a dated page of record. It assembles the complete lifecycle of CVE-2026-14535 from the CVE Program record, NVD enrichment, the CISA KEV catalog, EPSS, and OSV advisories. The box score's numbers (CVSS, EPSS, KEV status) are current as of Wednesday, August 19, 2026 UTC and are re-derived as the archive grows; only dated daily editions are immutable pages of record. The authoritative source for this identifier is cve.org.