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.

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - 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. (CVE-2023-40581)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
409816	SCA: security update for yt-dlp (GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	high
409816	SCA: security update for yt-dlp (GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	high
408130	Alpine: multiple yt-dlp packages: security update to 2023.09.24-r0	Tenable Cloud Security	Alpine Linux Local Security Checks	high
408130	Alpine: multiple yt-dlp packages: security update to 2023.09.24-r0	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	Alpine Linux Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2023-40581

high

Tenable Plugins

high

high

high

high