GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq
Suggest an improvement- Source
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq
- Import Source
- https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2025/04/GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq/GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq.json
- JSON Data
- https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq
- Related
- Published
- 2025-04-18T20:24:07Z
- Modified
- 2025-05-27T20:14:02.069098Z
- Severity
-
- 7.8 (High) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H CVSS Calculator
- Summary
- youtube-dl vulnerable to file system modification and RCE through improper file-extension sanitization
- Details
-
Description
This advisory follows the security advisory GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j published by the yt-dlp/yt-dlp project to aid remediation of the issue in the ytdl-org/youtube-dl project.
Vulnerability
youtube-dl does not limit the extensions of downloaded files, which could lead to arbitrary filenames being created in the download folder (and path traversal on Windows).
Impact
Since youtube-dl also reads config from the working directory (and, on Windows, executables will be executed from the youtube-dl directory by default) the vulnerability could allow the unwanted execution of local code, including downloads masquerading as, eg, subtitles.
Patches
The versions of youtube-dl listed as Patched remediate this vulnerability by disallowing path separators and whitelisting allowed extensions. As a result, some very uncommon extensions might not get downloaded.
Master code d42a222 or later and nightly builds tagged 2024-07-03 or later contain the remediation.
Workarounds
Any/all of the below considerations may limit exposure in case it is necessary to use a vulnerable version * have
.%(ext)sat the end of the output template * download from websites that you trust * do not download to a directory within the executable searchPATHor other sensitive locations, such as your user directory or system directories * in Windows versions that support it, set <code>NoDefaultCurrentDirectoryInExePath</code> to prevent the cmd shell's executable search adding the default directory beforePATH* consider that the path traversal vulnerability as a result of resolvingnon_existent_dir\..\..\targetdoes not exist in Linux or macOS * ensure the extension of the media to download is a common video/audio/... one (use--get-filename) * omit any of the subtitle options (--write-subs/--write-srt,--write-auto-subs/--write-automatic-subs,--all-subs).References
- GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j
- https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/pull/32830
- Database specific
{ "github_reviewed": true, "nvd_published_at": null, "github_reviewed_at": "2025-04-18T20:24:07Z", "severity": "HIGH", "cwe_ids": [ "CWE-434", "CWE-669" ] }- References
-
- https://github.com/dirkf/youtube-dl/security/advisories/GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq
- https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-79w7-vh3h-8g4j
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-38519
- https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/pull/32830
- https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commit/d42a222ed541b96649396ef00e19552aef0f09ec
- https://github.com/dirkf/youtube-dl
- https://securitylab.github.com/advisories/GHSL-2024-089_youtube-dl
Affected packages
PyPI / youtube-dl
Package
- Name
- youtube-dl
- View open source insights on deps.dev
- Purl
- pkg:pypi/youtube-dl