CVE-2016-10541 — shell-quote
CRITICALCVE-2016-10541 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability in shell-quote. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for shell-quote — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Potential Command Injection in shell-quote
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
shell-quotenpmDescription
Affected versions of shell-quote do not properly escape command line arguments, which may result in command injection if the library is used to escape user input destined for use as command line arguments.
Proof of Concept:
The following characters are not escaped properly: >,;,{,}
Bash has a neat but not well known feature known as "Bash Brace Expansion", wherein a sub-command can be executed without spaces by running it between a set of {} and using the , instead of to seperate arguments. Because of this, full command injection is possible even though it was initially thought to be impossible.
const quote = require('shell-quote').quote;
console.log(quote(['a;{echo,test,123,234}']));
// Actual "a;{echo,test,123,234}"
// Expected "a\;\{echo,test,123,234\}"
// Functional Equivalent "a; echo 'test' '123' '1234'"
Recommendation
Update to version 1.6.1 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | shell-quote | all versions | 1.6.1npm install shell-quote@1.6.1 |
Affected Products
shell-quoteshell-quote_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for shell-quote, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update shell-quote to 1.6.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-10541 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop passing untrusted input into the interpreter or shell: call the affected binary with an argument array rather than a composed command string, reject anything outside a strict allowlist of expected values, and run the component under an account that cannot reach beyond the work it legitimately does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2016-10541 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.