CVE-2026-10796 PUBLISHED

nvm executes commands from a malicious Node.js mirror's version strings

Assigner: openjs
Reserved: 03.06.2026 Published: 04.06.2026 Updated: 04.06.2026

nvm (Node Version Manager) through 0.40.4 executes arbitrary commands from version strings supplied by the configured Node.js/io.js mirror. Commands such as nvm install read the available versions from the mirror's index.tab and use the selected version, without sanitization, to build download URLs and shell/awk commands. Two sinks are affected by the same untrusted input: nvm_download() built a curl/wget command string and ran it with eval, so a version field containing command substitution (for example $(id)) was executed by the local shell; and nvm_get_checksum() interpolated the version-derived download slug into an awk program, so a crafted version could execute arbitrary commands via awk's system(). An attacker who controls the configured mirror, supplies mirror content to a user or CI on a non-default mirror, or machine-in-the-middles a non-TLS mirror can ∴ run arbitrary commands with the privileges of the user running nvm. The default mirror (https://nodejs.org over TLS) is not affected. Fixed on master (pending the next tagged release) by passing every argument as a literal argv element instead of using eval, by passing the value to awk as data via -v instead of interpolating it into the program, and by rejecting any version outside the Node.js/io.js version grammar before it is used.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 7.5

Product Status

Vendor nvm-sh
Product nvm
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 0.40.4 (incl.)

Credits

  • DavidCarliez reported the `nvm_download` eval sink finder
  • `nvm_get_checksum` `awk` sink was identified during remediation via an internal audit, fixed by ljharb analyst

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') CWE