CVE-2026-43893

exiftool-vendored: Argument injection via newline characters in tag names

State
Published
Severity
8.2 High
Published
May 11, 2026
Updated
May 12, 2026
Reserved
May 4, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

exiftool-vendored provides cross-platform Node.js access to ExifTool. Prior to 35.19.0, exiftool-vendored starts ExifTool in -stay_open True -@ - mode, where arguments are read from stdin one per line. In affected versions, several caller-supplied strings were interpolated into ExifTool arguments without rejecting line delimiters. A newline or carriage return inside one of those strings could split a single intended argument into multiple ExifTool arguments, allowing argument injection. The fix also rejects NUL bytes as unsafe control characters. Applications that pass attacker-controlled strings to affected APIs may allow an attacker to make ExifTool read files accessible to the ExifTool process, or write output to attacker-chosen file system paths accessible to that process. No remote code execution has been demonstrated. This vulnerability is fixed in 35.19.0.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.18.2 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:NGitHub_M

Weaknesses

  • CWE-88 Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection')

Affected Products

ProductVersions
exiftool-vendored.jsphotostructure
  • < 35.19.0Affected

References

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