Description
CRLF injection vulnerability in Lynx 2.8.4 and earlier allows remote attackers to inject false HTTP headers into an HTTP request that is provided on the command line, via a URL containing encoded carriage return, line feed, and other whitespace characters.
Fixed in Linux distributions
Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.
Debian
Security tracker ↗Public exploits
Exploit or proof-of-concept code for this vulnerability is publicly available, which lowers the bar for attackers. Treat it as a reason to patch sooner.
Third-party code, not reviewed by us. Public PoCs are sometimes fake or contain malware. Read the code first and run it only in an isolated lab, against systems you are authorised to test.
Exploit-DB 1
- Lynx 2.8.x - Command Line URL CRLF Injection EDB-21722 · remote · Aug 19, 2002 · verified
Sources: PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit Framework, Exploit-DB — updated daily. Only links are listed; no exploit code is hosted here.
Advisories 1
- DSA-210 lynx - CRLF injection Debian Security (DSA / DLA) · Mar 9, 2026
References
- MDKSA-2003:023 vendor-advisory
- RHSA-2003:030 vendor-advisory
- 2002-0085 vendor-advisory
- lynx-crlf-injection(9887) vdb-entry
- RHSA-2003:029 vendor-advisory
- 20020822 Lynx CRLF Injection, part two mailing-list
- 20020819 Lynx CRLF Injection mailing-list
- 5499 vdb-entry
- DSA-210 vendor-advisory