CVE-2026-121749 PUBLISHED

nvm passes the version pattern to grep without -e, letting a .nvmrc inject grep options and read local files

Assigner: harborist
Reserved: 03.11.2026 Published: 04.11.2026 Updated: 04.11.2026

Node Version Manager (nvm) is a POSIX-compliant shell function for managing multiple node.js versions. In versions 0.5.0 through 0.40.8, the requested version pattern is passed to grep as a bare argument, without -e, in nvm_ls_remote_index_tab, nvm_remote_version, and nvm_ls_cached. A .nvmrc whose first line starts with -, such as -Rohenpm_[A-Za-z0-9]*, is parsed as grep options; with GNU grep, -R searches the current directory recursively (following symlinks) instead of the version list. On a bare nvm install, nvm then treats a matched string from those files as the version, prints it, and requests it from the configured mirror inside download URLs, so for example a repository containing a symlink to ../../.npmrc can leak the user's npm token to the terminal and to the mirror's and any proxy's logs. The disclosure is read-only and limited to the characters 0-9A-Za-z._+-. Version 0.41.0 passes every version pattern to grep with -e.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:A/VC:L/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CVSS Score: 4.6

Product Status

Vendor nvm-sh
Product nvm
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0.5.0 to 0.41.0 (excl.)

Workarounds

Until upgrading, check that .nvmrc does not start with - before running nvm in an untrusted project directory.

Solutions

Upgrade to nvm 0.41.0 or later.

Credits

  • Anthropic's OSS Scanner, as vulnerability ANT-2026-EN9DM7WC finder
  • Jordan Harband (https://github.com/ljharb) remediation developer

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-88 Improper Neutralization of Argument Delimiters in a Command ('Argument Injection') CWE