A severe security flaw has been identified in the n8n workflow automation platform that could allow attackers to run arbitrary code in specific scenarios. The vulnerability, assigned CVE-2025-68613, has been rated 9.9 on the CVSS scale, highlighting its critical severity. 

The issue was discovered and responsibly disclosed by security researcher Fatih Çelik. According to npm data, the affected package sees approximately 57,000 downloads each week.

"Under certain conditions, expressions supplied by authenticated users during workflow configuration may be evaluated in an execution context that is not sufficiently isolated from the underlying runtime," the maintainers of the npm package said. 

"An authenticated attacker could abuse this behavior to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the n8n process. Successful exploitation may lead to full compromise of the affected instance, including unauthorized access to sensitive data, modification of workflows, and execution of system-level operations."

The vulnerability impacts all n8n versions starting from 0.211.0 up to, but not including, 1.120.4. The issue has been resolved in releases 1.120.4, 1.121.1, and 1.122.0. Data from attack surface management firm Censys indicates that as of December 22, 2025, around 103,476 n8n instances could still be exposed. Most of these potentially vulnerable deployments are based in the United States, Germany, France, Brazil, and Singapore.

Given the seriousness of the flaw, users are strongly urged to update their installations immediately. For environments where patching cannot be carried out right away, security experts recommend restricting workflow creation and editing rights to trusted users only. Additionally, deploying n8n within a hardened setup with limited operating system privileges and controlled network access can help reduce the risk of exploitation.