CVE-2022-31180
Insufficient escaping of whitespace in shescape
- State
- Published
- Severity
- 9.8 Critical
- Published
- Aug 1, 2022
- Updated
- Apr 22, 2025
- Reserved
- May 18, 2022
Description
Shescape is a simple shell escape package for JavaScript. Affected versions were found to have insufficient escaping of white space when interpolating output. This issue only impacts users that use the `escape` or `escapeAll` functions with the `interpolation` option set to `true`. The result is that if an attacker is able to include whitespace in their input they can: 1. Invoke shell-specific behaviour through shell-specific special characters inserted directly after whitespace. 2. Invoke shell-specific behaviour through shell-specific special characters inserted or appearing after line terminating characters. 3. Invoke arbitrary commands by inserting a line feed character. 4. Invoke arbitrary commands by inserting a carriage return character. Behaviour number 1 has been patched in [v1.5.7] which you can upgrade to now. No further changes are required. Behaviour number 2, 3, and 4 have been patched in [v1.5.8] which you can upgrade to now. No further changes are required. The best workaround is to avoid having to use the `interpolation: true` option - in most cases using an alternative is possible, see [the recipes](https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape#recipes) for recommendations. Alternatively, users may strip all whitespace from user input. Note that this is error prone, for example: for PowerShell this requires stripping `'\u0085'` which is not included in JavaScript's definition of `\s` for Regular Expressions.
Scores
| CVSS | Score | Vector | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | 9.8 Critical | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H | GitHub_M |
Weaknesses
- CWE-74 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component ('Injection')
Affected Products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
shescapeericcornelissen |
|
References
- https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/security/advisories/GHSA-44vr-rwwj-p88h
- https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/pull/322
- https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/pull/324
- https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/releases/tag/v1.5.7
- https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/releases/tag/v1.5.8
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