Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::generateP4Command() method, which constructs shell commands by interpolating user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) without proper escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through these values in a malicious composer.json declaring a Perforce VCS repository, leading to command execution in the context of the user running Composer, even if Perforce is not installed. VCS repositories are only loaded from the root composer.json or the composer config directory, so this cannot be exploited through composer.json files of packages installed as dependencies. Users are at risk if they run Composer commands on untrusted projects with attacker-supplied composer.json files. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6 (mainline).

The remote SUSE Linux SLES15 / SLES_SAP15 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the SUSE-SU-2026:1970-1 advisory.

    This update for php-composer2 fixes the following issues

    - CVE-2026-40176: command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (bsc#1262254).
    - CVE-2026-40261: command injection via malicious Perforce source reference/url (bsc#1262255).

    Changes for php-composer2:

    - version update to 2.2.27 (align with upstream LTS version)
     * Security: Hardened git/hg/perforce/fossil identifier validation to ensure branch names starting with -     do      not cause issues (246f807b, 246f807b, 246f807b)
     * Security: Fixed Perforce unescaped user input in queryP4User shell command (246f807b)
     * Security: Fixed usage of insecure 3DES ciphers when ext-curl is missing (21ffece62)
     * Fixed issue handling paths with = in them on Windows (#11568)
    - version 2.2.26 2025-12-30
     * Security: Fixed ANSI sequence injection (GHSA-59pp-r3rg-353g / CVE-2025-67746)
    - version 2.2.25 2024-12-11
     * Fixed deprecation notices appearing on this LTS version in case it is used on modern PHP. Modern PHP     support      is not guaranteed nor tested for though and the main purpose of LTS releases is legacy PHP versions     support. (#12217)
     * Fixed issue on plugin upgrade when it defines multiple classes (#12226)
     * Fixed duplicate errors appearing in the output depending on php settings (#12214)
     * Fixed InstalledVersions returning duplicate data in some instances (#12225)
    - version 2.2.24 2024-06-10
     * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious git branch name (GHSA-47f6-5gq3-vx9c / CVE-2024-35241)
     * Security: Fixed multiple command injections via malicious git/hg branch names (GHSA-v9qv-c7wm-wgmf /     CVE-2024-35242)
     * Security: Fixed secure-http checks that could be bypassed by using malformed URL formats (fa3b9582c)
     * Security: Fixed Filesystem::isLocalPath including windows-specific checks on linux (3c37a67c)
     * Security: Fixed perforce argument escaping (3773f775)
     * Security: Fixed handling of zip bombs when extracting archives (de5f7e32)
     * Security: Fixed Windows command parameter escaping to prevent abuse of unicode characters with best fit     encoding
     * conversion (3130a7455, 04a63b324)
    - version 2.2.23 2024-02-08
     * Security: Fixed code execution and possible privilege escalation via compromised vendor      dir contents (GHSA-7c6p-848j-wh5h / CVE-2024-24821)
    - version 2.2.22 2023-09-29
     * Security: Fixed possible remote code execution vulnerability if composer.phar is publicly accessible,     executable as PHP,      and register_argc_argv is enabled in php.ini (GHSA-jm6m-4632-36hf / CVE-2023-43655)
     * Fixed authentication issue when downloading several files from private Bitbucket in parallel (#11464)
     * Fixed handling of broken junctions on windows (#11550)
     * Fixed loading of root aliases on path repo packages when doing partial updates (#11632)
     * Fixed parsing of lib-curl-openssl version with OSX SecureTransport (#11534)
     * Fixed binary proxies not being transparent when included by another PHP process and returning a value     (#11454)
     * Fixed support for plugin classes being marked as readonly (#11404)
     * Fixed GitHub rate limit reporting (#11366)
     * Fixed issue displaying solver problems with branch names containing % signs (#11359)
    - version 2.2.21 2023-02-15
     * Fixed extra.plugin-optional support in PluginInstaller when doing pre-install checks (#11326)
    - version 2.2.20 2023-02-10
     * Added extra.plugin-optional support for allow auto-disabling unknown plugins which are not critical     when      running non-interactive (#11315)
    - version 2.2.19 2023-02-04
     * Fixed URL sanitizer to handle new GitHub personal access tokens format (#11137)
     * Fixed cache keys to allow _ to avoid conflicts between package names like a-b and a_b (#11229)
     * Fixed handling of --ignore-platform-req with upper-bound ignores to not apply to conflict rules     (#11037)
     * Fixed handling of COMPOSER_DISCARD_CHANGES when set to 0
    - version 2.2.18 2022-08-20
     * Fixed COMPOSER_NO_DEV so it also works with require and remove's --update-no-dev (#10995)
     * Fixed duplicate missing extension warnings being displayed (#10938)
     * Fixed hg version detection (#10955)
     * Fixed git cache invalidation issue when a git tag gets created after the cache has loaded a given     reference (#11004)
    - version 2.2.17 2022-07-13
     * Fixed plugins from CWD/vendor being loaded in some cases like create-project or validate even though     the target      directory is outside of CWD (#10935)
     * Fixed support for legacy (Composer 1.x, e.g. hirak/prestissimo) plugins which will not warn/error     anymore if      not in allow-plugins, as they are anyway not loaded (#10928)
     * Fixed pre-install check for allowed plugins not taking --no-plugins into account (#10925)
     * Fixed support for disable_functions containing disk_free_space (#10936)
     * Fixed RootPackageRepository usages to always clone the root package to avoid interoperability issues     with plugins (#10940)
    - version 2.2.16 2022-07-05
     * Fixed non-interactive behavior of allow-plugins to throw instead of continue with a warning to avoid     broken installs (#10920)
     * Fixed allow-plugins BC mode to ensure old lock files created pre-2.2 can be installed with only a     warning but      plugins fully loaded (#10920)
     * Fixed deprecation notice (#10921)
    - version 2.2.15 2022-07-01
     * Fixed support for cache-read-only where the filesystem is not writable (#10906)
     * Fixed type error when using allow-plugins: true (#10909)
     * Fixed @putenv scripts receiving arguments passed to the command (#10846)
     * Fixed support for spaces in paths with binary proxies on Windows (#10836)
     * Fixed type error in GitDownloader if branches cannot be listed (#10888)
     * Fixed RootPackageInterface issue on PHP 5.3.3 (#10895)
    - version 2.2.14 2022-06-06
     * Fixed handling of broken symlinks when checking whether a package is still installed (#6708)
     * Fixed JSON schema regex pattern for name to be JS compatible (#10811)
     * Fixed bin proxies to allow a proxy to include another one safely (#10823)
     * Fixed gitlab-token JSON schema definition (#10800)
     * Fixed openssl 3.x version parsing as it is now semver compliant
     * Fixed type error when a json file cannot be read (#10818)
     * Fixed parsing of multi-line arrays in funding.yml (#10784)
    - version 2.2.13 2022-05-25
     * Fixed invalid credentials loop when setting up GitLab token (#10748)
     * Fixed PHP 8.2 deprecations (#10766)
     * Fixed lock file changes being output even when the lock file creation is disabled
     * Fixed race condition when multiple requests asking for auth on the same hostname fired concurrently     (#10763)
     * Fixed quoting of commas on Windows (#10775)
     * Fixed issue installing path repos with a disabled symlink function (#10786)
    - version 2.2.12 2022-04-13
     * Security: Fixed command injection vulnerability in HgDriver/GitDriver (GHSA-x7cr-6qr6-2hh6 /     CVE-2022-24828)
     * Fixed curl downloader not retrying when a DNS resolution failure occurs (#10716)
     * Fixed composer.lock file still being used/read when the lock config option is disabled (#10726)
     * Fixed validate command checking the lock file even if the lock option is disabled (#10723)
    - version 2.2.11 2022-04-01
     * Added missing config.bitbucket-oauth in composer-schema.json
     * Added --2.2 flag to self-update to pin the Composer version to the 2.2 LTS range (#10682)
     * Updated semver, jsonlint deps for minor fixes
     * Fixed generation of autoload crashing if a package has a broken path (#10688)
     * Removed dev-master=>dev-main alias from #10372 as it does not work when reloading from lock file and     extracting dev deps (#10651)
    - version 2.2.10 2022-03-29
     * Fixed Bitbucket authorization detection due to API changes (#10657)
     * Fixed validate command warning about dist/source keys if defined (#10655)
     * Fixed deletion/handling of corrupted 0-bytes zip archives (#10666)
    - version 2.2.9 2022-03-15
     * Fixed regression with plugins that modify install path of packages, see docs if you are authoring such     a plugin (#10621)
    - version 2.2.8 2022-03-15
     * Fixed files autoloading sort order to be fully deterministic (#10617)
     * Fixed pool optimization pass edge cases (#10579)
     * Fixed require command failing when self.version is used as constraint (#10593)
     * Fixed --no-ansi / undecorated output still showing color in repo warnings (#10601)
     * Performance improvement in pool optimization step (composer/semver#131)
    - version 2.2.7 2022-02-25
     * Allow installation together with composer/xdebug-handler ^3 (#10528)
     * Fixed support for packages with no licenses in licenses command output (#10537)
     * Fixed handling of allow-plugins: false which kept warning (#10530)
     * Fixed enum parsing in classmap generation when the enum keyword is not lowercased (#10521)
     * Fixed author parsing in init command requiring an email whereas the schema allows a name only (#10538)
     * Fixed issues in require command when requiring packages which do not exist (but are provided by     something else you require) (#10541)
     * Performance improvement in pool optimization step (#10546)
    - version 2.2.6 2022-02-04
     * BC Break: due to an oversight, the COMPOSER_BIN_DIR env var for binaries added in Composer 2.2.2 had to     be renamed      to COMPOSER_RUNTIME_BIN_DIR (#10512)
     * Fixed enum parsing in classmap generation with syntax like enum foo:string without space after :
    (#10498)
     * Fixed package search not urlencoding the input (#10500)
     * Fixed reinstall command not firing pre-install-cmd/post-install-cmd events (#10514)
     * Fixed edge case in path repositories where a symlink: true option would be ignored on old Windows and     old PHP combos (#10482)
     * Fixed test suite compatibility with latest symfony/console releases (#10499)
     * Fixed some error reporting edge cases (#10484, #10451, #10493)
    - version 2.2.5 2022-01-21
     * Disabled composer/package-versions-deprecated by default as it can function using     Composer\InstalledVersions at runtime (#10458)
     * Fixed artifact repositories crashing if a phar file was present in the directory (#10406)
     * Fixed binary proxy issue on PHP <8 when fseek is used on the proxied binary path (#10468)
     * Fixed handling of non-string versions in package repositories metadata (#10470)
    - version 2.2.4 2022-01-08
     * Fixed handling of process timeout when running async processes during installation
     * Fixed GitLab API handling when projects have a repository disabled (#10440)
     * Fixed reading of environment variables (e.g. APPDATA) containing unicode characters to workaround a PHP     bug on Windows (#10434)
     * Fixed partial update issues with path repos missing if a path repo is required by a path repo (#10431)
     * Fixed support for sourcing binaries via the new bin proxies (#10389)
     * Fixed messaging when GitHub tokens need SSO authorization (#10432)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the SUSE security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote openSUSE 16 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the openSUSE-SU-2026:20670-1 advisory.

    - CVE-2025-67746: ANSI control characters injection in terminal output of various Composer commands via     attacker       controlled remote sources (bsc#1255768).
    - CVE-2026-40176: arbitrary command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (bsc#1262254).
    - CVE-2026-40261: arbitrary command injection via malicious Perforce source reference/url (bsc#1262255).

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the SUSE security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the ALAS2023-2026-1625 advisory.

    Command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (CVE-2026-40176)

    Command injection via malicious Perforce source reference/url (CVE-2026-40261)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the tested product security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Fedora 44 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2026-1140c02041 advisory.

    ### Version 2.9.7 - 2026-04-14

    * Fixes regression calling custom script command aliases that are called a substring of a composer command     (#12802)

    ----

    ### Version 2.9.6 -  2026-04-14

      * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce reference (GHSA-gqw4-4w2p-838q /
    **CVE-2026-40261**)
      * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p /
    **CVE-2026-40176**)
      * Security: Fixed git credentials remaining in git mirror .git/config after clone or update failed     (2bcbfc3d)
      * Security: Fixed usage of insecure 3DES ciphers when ext-curl is missing (5e71d77e)
      * Security: Fixed Perforce unescaped user input in queryP4User shell command (ef3fc088)
      * Security: Hardened git/hg/perforce/fossil identifier validation to ensure branch names starting with     `-` do not cause issues (6621d45, d836b90, 5e08c764)
      * Fixed inconsistent treatment of SingleCommandApplication script commands wrt autoloading (#12758)
      * Fixed GitHub API authentication errors not being visible to the user (#12737)
      * Fixed some platform package parsing failing when Composer runs in web SAPIs (#12735)
      * Fixed error reporting for clarity when a constraint cannot be parsed (#12743)



Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Fedora 42 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2026-d91f313a63 advisory.

    ### Version 2.9.7 - 2026-04-14

    * Fixes regression calling custom script command aliases that are called a substring of a composer command     (#12802)

    ----

    ### Version 2.9.6 -  2026-04-14

      * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce reference (GHSA-gqw4-4w2p-838q /
    **CVE-2026-40261**)
      * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p /
    **CVE-2026-40176**)
      * Security: Fixed git credentials remaining in git mirror .git/config after clone or update failed     (2bcbfc3d)
      * Security: Fixed usage of insecure 3DES ciphers when ext-curl is missing (5e71d77e)
      * Security: Fixed Perforce unescaped user input in queryP4User shell command (ef3fc088)
      * Security: Hardened git/hg/perforce/fossil identifier validation to ensure branch names starting with     `-` do not cause issues (6621d45, d836b90, 5e08c764)
      * Fixed inconsistent treatment of SingleCommandApplication script commands wrt autoloading (#12758)
      * Fixed GitHub API authentication errors not being visible to the user (#12737)
      * Fixed some platform package parsing failing when Composer runs in web SAPIs (#12735)
      * Fixed error reporting for clarity when a constraint cannot be parsed (#12743)



Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The version of FreeBSD installed on the remote host is prior to tested version. It is, therefore, affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the 7a7a17b2-381c-11f1-a663-10ffe07f9334 advisory.

    Composer project reports:
    Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce reference (GHSA-gqw4-4w2p-838q / CVE-2026-40261)     Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p /     CVE-2026-40176)

Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the FreeBSD security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

The remote Fedora 43 host has a package installed that is affected by multiple vulnerabilities as referenced in the FEDORA-2026-02c1f66b6a advisory.

    ### Version 2.9.7 - 2026-04-14

    * Fixes regression calling custom script command aliases that are called a substring of a composer command     (#12802)

    ----

    ### Version 2.9.6 -  2026-04-14

      * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce reference (GHSA-gqw4-4w2p-838q /
    **CVE-2026-40261**)
      * Security: Fixed command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition (GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p /
    **CVE-2026-40176**)
      * Security: Fixed git credentials remaining in git mirror .git/config after clone or update failed     (2bcbfc3d)
      * Security: Fixed usage of insecure 3DES ciphers when ext-curl is missing (5e71d77e)
      * Security: Fixed Perforce unescaped user input in queryP4User shell command (ef3fc088)
      * Security: Hardened git/hg/perforce/fossil identifier validation to ensure branch names starting with     `-` do not cause issues (6621d45, d836b90, 5e08c764)
      * Fixed inconsistent treatment of SingleCommandApplication script commands wrt autoloading (#12758)
      * Fixed GitHub API authentication errors not being visible to the user (#12737)
      * Fixed some platform package parsing failing when Composer runs in web SAPIs (#12735)
      * Fixed error reporting for clarity when a constraint cannot be parsed (#12743)


Tenable has extracted the preceding description block directly from the Fedora security advisory.

Note that Nessus has not tested for these issues but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

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

  - Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a
    command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::generateP4Command() method, which constructs shell
    commands by interpolating user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) without proper
    escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through these values in a malicious composer.json
    declaring a Perforce VCS repository, leading to command execution in the context of the user running
    Composer, even if Perforce is not installed. VCS repositories are only loaded from the root composer.json
    or the composer config directory, so this cannot be exploited through composer.json files of packages
    installed as dependencies. Users are at risk if they run Composer commands on untrusted projects with
    attacker-supplied composer.json files. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6
    (mainline). (CVE-2026-40176)

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

  - Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a     command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::generateP4Command() method, which constructs shell     commands by interpolating user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) without proper     escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through these values in a malicious composer.json     declaring a Perforce VCS repository, leading to command execution in the context of the user running     Composer, even if Perforce is not installed. VCS repositories are only loaded from the root composer.json     or the composer config directory, so this cannot be exploited through composer.json files of packages     installed as dependencies. Users are at risk if they run Composer commands on untrusted projects with     attacker-supplied composer.json files. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6     (mainline). (CVE-2026-40176)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

There are packages installed that are affected by multiple vulnerabilities referenced in the following CVEs:

  - Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a
    command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::generateP4Command() method, which constructs shell
    commands by interpolating user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) without proper
    escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through these values in a malicious composer.json
    declaring a Perforce VCS repository, leading to command execution in the context of the user running
    Composer, even if Perforce is not installed. VCS repositories are only loaded from the root composer.json
    or the composer config directory, so this cannot be exploited through composer.json files of packages
    installed as dependencies. Users are at risk if they run Composer commands on untrusted projects with
    attacker-supplied composer.json files. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6
    (mainline). (CVE-2026-40176)

  - Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a
    command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::syncCodeBase() method, which appends the $sourceReference
    parameter to a shell command without proper escaping, and additionally in the
    Perforce::generateP4Command() method as in GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p / CVE-2026-40176, which interpolates user-
    supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) from the source url field without proper
    escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through crafted source reference or source url values
    containing shell metacharacters, even if Perforce is not installed. Unlike CVE-2026-40176, the source
    reference and url are provided as part of package metadata, meaning any compromised or malicious Composer
    repository can serve package metadata declaring perforce as a source type with malicious values. This
    vulnerability is exploitable when installing or updating dependencies from source, including the default
    behavior when installing dev-prefixed versions. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and
    2.9.6 (mainline). If developers are unable to immediately update, they can avoid installing dependencies
    from source by using --prefer-dist or the preferred-install: dist config setting, and only use trusted
    Composer repositories as a workaround. (CVE-2026-40261)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
315284	SUSE SLES15 Security Update : php-composer2 (SUSE-SU-2026:1970-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
313630	openSUSE 16 Security Update : php-composer2 (openSUSE-SU-2026:20670-1)	Nessus	SuSE Local Security Checks	medium
311337	Amazon Linux 2023 : composer (ALAS2023-2026-1625)	Nessus	Amazon Linux Local Security Checks	high
310220	Fedora 44 : composer (2026-1140c02041)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
309858	Fedora 42 : composer (2026-d91f313a63)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
306638	FreeBSD : PHP Composer -- Multiple vulnerabilities (7a7a17b2-381c-11f1-a663-10ffe07f9334)	Nessus	FreeBSD Local Security Checks	high
306621	Fedora 43 : composer (2026-02c1f66b6a)	Nessus	Fedora Local Security Checks	high
440406	SCA: security update for composer/composer (GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	high
440406	SCA: security update for composer/composer (GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	high
306581	Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-40176	Nessus	Misc.	high
440341	Alpine: multiple composer packages: security update to 2.9.6-r0	Tenable Cloud Security	Alpine Linux Local Security Checks	high
440341	Alpine: multiple composer packages: security update to 2.9.6-r0	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	Alpine Linux Local Security Checks	high

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2026-40176

high

Tenable Plugins

medium

medium

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high

high