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CVE-2021-42740: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command in Shell-quote

May 24, 2022 (updated September 10, 2025)

The shell-quote package before 1.7.3 for Node.js allows command injection. An attacker can inject unescaped shell metacharacters through a regex designed to support Windows drive letters. If the output of this package is passed to a real shell as a quoted argument to a command with exec(), an attacker can inject arbitrary commands. This is because the Windows drive letter regex character class is [A-z] instead of the correct [A-Za-z]. Several shell metacharacters exist in the space between capital letter Z and lower case letter a, such as the backtick character.

References

  • github.com/advisories/GHSA-g4rg-993r-mgx7
  • github.com/ljharb/shell-quote
  • github.com/ljharb/shell-quote/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
  • github.com/ljharb/shell-quote/commit/5799416ed454aa4ec9afafc895b4e31760ea1abe
  • nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-42740
  • www.npmjs.com/package/shell-quote

Code Behaviors & Features

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Affected versions

All versions starting from 1.6.3 before 1.7.3

Fixed versions

  • 1.7.3

Solution

Upgrade to version 1.7.3 or above.

Impact 9.8 CRITICAL

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Learn more about CVSS

Weakness

  • CWE-77: Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command ('Command Injection')

Source file

npm/shell-quote/CVE-2021-42740.yml

Spotted a mistake? Edit the file on GitLab.

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