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OpenAdvisories
High · 7.5 CVE-2025-54072 EUVD-2025-22381

yt-dlp allows `--exec` command injection when using placeholder on Windows

Published Jul 22, 2025 · Updated Jul 23, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader. In versions 2025.06.25 and below, when the --exec option is used on Windows with the default placeholder (or {}), insufficient sanitization is applied to the expanded filepath, allowing for remote code execution. This is a bypass of the mitigation for CVE-2024-22423 where the default placeholder and {} were not covered by the new escaping rules. Windows users who are unable to upgrade should avoid using --exec altogether. Instead, the --write-info-json or --dump-json options could be used, with an external script or command line consuming the JSON output. This is fixed in version 2025.07.21.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
yt-dlp yt-dlp < 2025.07.21 —

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 —

References