Critical ChromaDB RCE Vulnerability Threatens AI Application Security

ChromaDB is an open-source vector database commonly used by generative AI and retrieval-augmented generation systems to store text embeddings and search for semantically similar content. Because it may be connected to models, API keys and internal corporate data, a remote server takeover could allow attackers to steal sensitive information and potentially compromise an AI application’s broader infrastructure.

Cybersecurity firm HiddenLayer disclosed CVE-2026-45829 on May 18, 2026, with a maximum CVSS 4.0 score of 10.0. The vulnerability has been present since version 1.0.0 of ChromaDB’s Python implementation. An unauthenticated attacker can specify a malicious Hugging Face model and enable trust_remote_code to execute code before permission checks occur. Affected users should restrict HTTP API access to trusted clients only or switch to the Rust server.