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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.8 CVE-2024-38519 EUVD-2024-2285GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4jPYSEC-2026-2065

yt-dlp and youtube-dl vulnerable to file system modification and RCE through improper file-extension sanitization

Published Jul 2, 2024 · Updated Aug 2, 2024 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

`yt-dlp` and `youtube-dl` are command-line audio/video downloaders. Prior to the fixed versions, `yt-dlp` and `youtube-dl` do not limit the extensions of downloaded files, which could lead to arbitrary filenames being created in the download folder (and path traversal on Windows). Since `yt-dlp` and `youtube-dl` also read config from the working directory (and on Windows executables will be executed from the `yt-dlp` or `youtube-dl` directory), this could lead to arbitrary code being executed.

`yt-dlp` version 2024.07.01 fixes this issue by whitelisting the allowed extensions. `youtube-dl` fixes this issue in commit `d42a222` on the `master` branch and in nightly builds tagged 2024-07-03 or later. This might mean some very uncommon extensions might not get downloaded, however it will also limit the possible exploitation surface. In addition to upgrading, have `.%(ext)s` at the end of the output template and make sure the user trusts the websites that they are downloading from. Also, make sure to never download to a directory within PATH or other sensitive locations like one's user directory, `system32`, or other binaries locations. For users who are not able to upgrade, keep the default output template (`-o "%(title)s [%(id)s].%(ext)s`); make sure the extension of the media to download is a common video/audio/sub/... one; try to avoid the generic extractor; and/or use `--ignore-config --config-location ...` to not load config from common locations.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
yt-dlp yt-dlp < 2024.07.01 – < 2024.07.01 2024.07.01
ytdl-org youtube-dl >= 2015.01.25 – ≤ 2021.12.17, nightly – < 2024-07-03 2024-07-03

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 2024.07.01-1 —
Debian 13 yt-dlp 2024.07.01-1 —
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
openSUSE Tumbleweed yt-dlp 2024.07.01-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:14094-1
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Alpine v3.24 yt-dlp 2024.07.01-r0 —
Alpine v3.23 yt-dlp 2024.07.01-r0 —
Alpine v3.22 yt-dlp 2024.07.01-r0 —
Alpine v3.21 yt-dlp 2024.07.01-r0 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
PyPI yt-dlp < 2024.07.01 2024.07.01 GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j

Advisories 1

References