CVE-2023-40581

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Summary

CVECVE-2023-40581
StatePUBLIC
Assigner[email protected]
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2023-09-25 19:15:00 UTC
Updated2023-09-27 14:48:00 UTC
Descriptionyt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes. yt-dlp allows the user to provide shell command lines to be executed at various stages in its download steps through the `--exec` flag. This flag allows output template expansion in its argument, so that metadata values may be used in the shell commands. The metadata fields can be combined with the `%q` conversion, which is intended to quote/escape these values so they can be safely passed to the shell. However, the escaping used for `cmd` (the shell used by Python's `subprocess` on Windows) does not properly escape special characters, which can allow for remote code execution if `--exec` is used directly with maliciously crafted remote data. This vulnerability only impacts `yt-dlp` on Windows, and the vulnerability is present regardless of whether `yt-dlp` is run from `cmd` or from `PowerShell`. Support for output template expansion in `--exec`, along with this vulnerable behavior, was added to `yt-dlp` in version 2021.04.11. yt-dlp version 2023.09.24 fixes this issue by properly escaping each special character. `\n` will be replaced by `\r` as no way of escaping it has been found. It is recommended to upgrade yt-dlp to version 2023.09.24 as soon as possible. Also, always be careful when using --exec, because while this specific vulnerability has been patched, using unvalidated input in shell commands is inherently dangerous. For Windows users who are not able to upgrade: 1. Avoid using any output template expansion in --exec other than {} (filepath). 2. If expansion in --exec is needed, verify the fields you are using do not contain ", | or &. 3. Instead of using --exec, write the info json and load the fields from it instead.

Risk And Classification

Problem Types: CWE-78

NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)

TypeVendorProductVersionUpdateEditionLanguage
Operating System Microsoft Windows - All All All
Application Yt-dlp Project Yt-dlp All All All All

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
Release yt-dlp nightly 2023.09.24.003044 · yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds · GitHub MISC github.com
[core] Prevent RCE when using `--exec` with `%q` (CVE-2023-40581) · yt-dlp/yt-dlp@de015e9 · GitHub MISC github.com
Release yt-dlp 2021.04.11 · yt-dlp/yt-dlp · GitHub MISC github.com
`--exec` command injection when using `%q` in yt-dlp on Windows · Advisory · yt-dlp/yt-dlp · GitHub MISC github.com
Release yt-dlp 2023.09.24 · yt-dlp/yt-dlp · GitHub MISC github.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

Legacy QID Mappings

  • 506289 Alpine Linux Security Update for yt-dlp
  • 995405 Python (Pip) Security Update for yt-dlp (GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg)
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