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High · 8.4 CVE-2023-40581 EUVD-2023-2412GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qgPYSEC-2026-2064

yt-dlp command injection when using `%q` in `--exec` on Windows

Published Sep 25, 2023 · Updated Sep 24, 2024 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
yt-dlp yt-dlp >= 2021.04.11, < 2023.09.24, < nightly 2023.09.24.003044 —

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
Alpine v3.24 yt-dlp 0-r0 —
Alpine v3.23 yt-dlp 0-r0 —
Alpine v3.22 yt-dlp 0-r0 —
Alpine v3.21 yt-dlp 0-r0 —
Alpine v3.20 yt-dlp 0-r0 —
Show 1 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.19 yt-dlp 2023.09.24-r0 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
PyPI yt-dlp >= 2021.04.11, < 2023.09.24 2023.09.24 GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg

References