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GHSA-22fp-mf44-f2mq

HighCVSS 7.8 / 10
Published Apr 18, 2025·Last modified Feb 4, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

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)s at the end of the output template
  • download from websites that you trust
  • do not download to a directory within the executable search PATH or other sensitive locations, such as your user directory or system directories
  • in Windows versions that support it, set NoDefaultCurrentDirectoryInExePath to prevent the cmd shell's executable search adding the default directory before PATH
  • consider that the path traversal vulnerability as a result of resolving non_existent_dir\..\..\target does 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

Risk Scores
Base Score
7.8

The vulnerability requires local access to the device to be exploited. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. The attacker needs the user to perform some action, like clicking a link. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.

Threat Intelligence
7.1

Exploitation activity has been observed. Apply available patches or mitigations urgently.

EPSS
N/A

Probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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High severity
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