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CVE-2023-40581

20
FAUCET Score

CVE-2023-40581 is a remote code execution vulnerability affecting yt-dlp on Windows, stemming from improper escaping of special characters when using the --exec flag with output template expansion. An attacker could craft malicious remote data to execute arbitrary commands. This vulnerability is rated High (CVSS 7.8) due to its potential for complete compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, requiring user interaction. While there is no evidence of active exploitation, public exploit code, or significant community discussion, users are advised to upgrade to yt-dlp version 2023.09.24 immediately.

Impacted Technologies

VendorProductVersion(s)CPE
>= 2021.04.11, < 2023.09.24CPE matchmatch criteria
cpe:2.3:a:yt-dlp_project:yt-dlp:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

CVSS Data

CVSS version used by this source: 3.1

8.3HIGH

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

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Attack Complexity
HIGH
Privileges Required
NONE
User Interaction
REQUIRED
Scope
CHANGED
Confidentiality Impact
HIGH
Integrity Impact
HIGH
Availability Impact
HIGH
Exploitability Score
1.6
Impact Score
6.0
CvssVersion
3.1

Exploit Intelligence

EPSS Score
1.29%
Probability of exploitation in next 30 days
EPSS Percentile
67.3%
Percentile rank of EPSS score among Peer Group
As of 2026-07-26
Model: v2026.06.15
This CVE's current EPSS score of 0.0129 is in the 65th percentile among its peer group of 11,616 CVEs.

Social Chatter

No social media mentions found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.1 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.0 Mastodon, and 0.2 GitHub mentions.

Media Mentions

No media coverage found for this CVE.

The average CVE in this peer group has 0.3 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.

Remediation

Patch Available

Vendor Patches (2)

github_advisorypatch availablevia nvd_reference
View patch
pippatch availablevia ghsa
Product: yt-dlpFixed in: 2023.09.24

Vendor Advisories (1)

pipGHSA-42h4-v29r-42qghigh

yt-dlp on Windows vulnerable to `--exec` command injection when using `%q`

Sep 25, 2023

References

github.com / yt-dlp/yt-dlp/commit/de015e930747165dbb8fcd360f8775fd973b7d6e
Patch
github.com / yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases/tag/2023.09.24.003044
ProductRelease Notes
github.com / yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2021.04.11
ProductRelease Notes
github.com / yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2023.09.24
ProductRelease Notes
github.com / yt-dlp/yt-dlp/security/advisories/GHSA-42h4-v29r-42qg
ExploitMitigationPatchThird Party Advisory