CVE-2026-43893 PUBLISHED

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

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 04.05.2026 Published: 11.05.2026 Updated: 11.05.2026

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.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N
CVSS Score: 8.2

Product Status

Vendor photostructure
Product exiftool-vendored.js
Versions
  • Version < 35.19.0 is affected

References

Problem Types

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