CVE-2026-43893CWE-88

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

High · published May 11, 2026

CVSS v3.1
8.2
EPSS
1%
Percentile
44.1
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
8.2 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00531 · 44.1th percentile
Weakness
CWE-88 · Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection')
Published
2026-05-11T20:59Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 11 MAY 20:59Z
    exiftool-vendored: Argument injection via newline characters in tag names
    cvelistv5