Model Context Protocol Python SDK: Client fetched server-chosen $ref URLs while validating tool results against output schemas
CVE-2026-116686
Summary In affected versions, when a connected MCP server declared an outputSchema for a tool, the SDK's client validated each calltool result with jsonschema's default resolver, which fetches any $ref it cannot resolve locally by opening the URL. A server could therefore put an http://, https:// or file:// reference in a tool's output schema and make the client: request that URL, or read that local file, from the client's own network position on every call of the tool (the content was used only as a schema and never sent back to the server), and stall: the fetch ran synchronously on the event loop with no timeout, so a target that accepted the connection and then went quiet froze every session in the process for as long as it held the connection. Am I affected? Yes, if your application uses the SDK as an MCP client (ClientSession over any transport, ClientSessionGroup, or the 2.x Client) and calls tools on servers you do not fully control. There was no setting that turned the validation off. Affected versions: 1.10.0 through 1.29.1, and 2.0.0 through 2.1.1. Not affected: applications that only build servers. If nothing in your code uses ClientSession, ClientSessionGroup or the…
Part of the AI stack
This affects Model Context Protocol, in MCP & tool servers.
Assessment
- CVSS
- 6.5 (v3.1)
- Severity
- Medium
- EPSS
- 0.00337% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Known exploited
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Exploit availability
- Nothing found in Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or public PoC repositories
- Published
- 27 October 2026
- Last updated
- 27 October 2026
- Affected
- pip · mcp
- Weakness
- CWE-918
CVSS vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
At the source
References
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/security/advisories/GHSA-rwrf-2pqf-9j8j
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/pull/3394
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/pull/3396
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/commit/5ebdfed4060d8e5b11b8e2348f86bad4d1fb8836
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/commit/6705402e246dc4eb1fcdf4d9902b78d3c9c36e1b
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/releases/tag/v1.30.0
- https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/releases/tag/v2.2.0
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-rwrf-2pqf-9j8j
Query this programmatically
Agents can read this through the MCP endpoint, or over HTTP:
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