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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 6.1 CVE-2023-35934 EUVD-2023-2146GHSA-v8mc-9377-rwjjPYSEC-2026-2067

yt-dlp File Downloader cookie leak

Published Jul 6, 2023 · Updated Feb 13, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

yt-dlp is a command-line program to download videos from video sites. During file downloads, yt-dlp or the external downloaders that yt-dlp employs may leak cookies on HTTP redirects to a different host, or leak them when the host for download fragments differs from their parent manifest's host. This vulnerable behavior is present in yt-dlp prior to 2023.07.06 and nightly 2023.07.06.185519. All native and external downloaders are affected, except for `curl` and `httpie` (version 3.1.0 or later).

At the file download stage, all cookies are passed by yt-dlp to the file downloader as a `Cookie` header, thereby losing their scope. This also occurs in yt-dlp's info JSON output, which may be used by external tools. As a result, the downloader or external tool may indiscriminately send cookies with requests to domains or paths for which the cookies are not scoped.

yt-dlp version 2023.07.06 and nightly 2023.07.06.185519 fix this issue by removing the `Cookie` header upon HTTP redirects; having native downloaders calculate the `Cookie` header from the cookiejar, utilizing external downloaders' built-in support for cookies instead of passing them as header arguments, disabling HTTP redirectiong if the external downloader does not have proper cookie support, processing cookies passed as HTTP headers to limit their scope, and having a separate field for cookies in the info dict storing more information about scoping

Some workarounds are available for those who are unable to upgrade. Avoid using cookies and user authentication methods. While extractors may set custom cookies, these usually do not contain sensitive information. Alternatively, avoid using `--load-info-json`. Or, if authentication is a must: verify the integrity of download links from unknown sources in browser (including redirects) before passing them to yt-dlp; use `curl` as external downloader, since it is not impacted; and/or avoid fragmented formats such as HLS/m3u8, DASH/mpd and ISM.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
yt-dlp yt-dlp yt-dlp < 2023.07.06, yt-dlp < nightly 2023.07.06.185519 —

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.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-1 —
Debian 13 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-1 —
Debian 12 yt-dlp +1 No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 yt-dlp No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS yt-dlp No fix yet —
Ubuntu 25.10 yt-dlp No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS yt-dlp No fix yet —
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS yt-dlp No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
SUSE Package Hub 15 SP5 yt-dlp 2023.11.14-bp155.3.3.1 openSUSE-SU-2023:0374-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed yt-dlp 2023.07.06-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:13142-1
openSUSE Leap 15.5 yt-dlp 2023.11.14-bp155.3.3.1 openSUSE-SU-2023:0374-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.24 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —
Alpine v3.23 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —
Alpine v3.22 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —
Alpine v3.21 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —
Alpine v3.20 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.19 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —
Alpine v3.18 yt-dlp 2023.07.06-r0 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
PyPI yt-dlp < 2023.7.06 2023.7.06 GHSA-v8mc-9377-rwjj

Advisories 2

References