Bug 2242230 (CVE-2023-40581)
| Summary: | CVE-2023-40581 yt-dlp: `--exec` command injection when using `%q` in yt-dlp on Windows | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | [Other] Security Response | Reporter: | TEJ RATHI <trathi> |
| Component: | vulnerability | Assignee: | Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot> |
| Status: | NEW --- | QA Contact: | |
| Severity: | high | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | high | ||
| Version: | unspecified | Keywords: | Security |
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | yt-dlp 2023.09.24 | Doc Type: | If docs needed, set a value |
| Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | Type: | --- | |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
This CVE is Windows Specific and only affects versions of yt-dlp on Windows-OS. |
yt-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. https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2021.04.11 https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2023.09.24 https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/de015e930747165dbb8fcd360f8775fd973b7d6e https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases/tag/2023.09.24.003044