CVE-2017-1000220 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) OS Command Injection vulnerability in pidusage. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for pidusage — see the affected versions and patch details below.
PIDUsage Enables OS Command Injection
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.
pidusagenpmDescription
Overview
Affected versions of pidusage pass unsanitized input to child_process.exec(), resulting in arbitrary code execution in the ps method.
This package is vulnerable to this PoC on Darwin, SunOS, FreeBSD, and AIX.
Windows and Linux are not vulnerable.
Proof of Concept
var pid = require('pidusage');
pid.stat('1 && /usr/local/bin/python');
Remediation
Update to version 1.1.5 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | pidusage | all versions | 1.1.5npm install pidusage@1.1.5 |
Affected Products
pidusagepidusage_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 pidusage, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pidusage to 1.1.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-1000220 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-2017-1000220 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.