yt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes. The patch
that addressed CVE-2023-40581 attempted to prevent RCE when using --exec
with %q
by replacing double quotes with two double quotes. However, this
escaping is not sufficient, and still allows expansion of environment
variables. 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 2024.04.09 fixes this issue by properly escaping %
. It
replaces them with %%cd:~,%
, a variable that expands to nothing, leaving
only the leading percent. It is recommended to upgrade yt-dlp to version
2024.04.09 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, avoid using any output template
expansion in --exec
other than {}
(filepath); if expansion in --exec
is needed, verify the fields you are using do not contain "
, |
or &
;
and/or instead of using --exec
, write the info json and load the fields
from it instead.
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/de015e930747165dbb8fcd360f8775fd973b7d6e
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/ff07792676f404ffff6ee61b5638c9dc1a33a37a
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2021.04.11
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2024.04.09
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg
github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-hjq6-52gw-2g7p
launchpad.net/bugs/cve/CVE-2024-22423
nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-22423
security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2024-22423
www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-22423