CVE-2021-23352 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) SQL Injection vulnerability in madge. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for madge — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Madge vulnerable to command injection
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2021-23352 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
madgenpmDescription
This affects the package madge before 4.0.1. It is possible to specify a custom Graphviz path via the graphVizPath option parameter which, when the .image(), .svg() or .dot() functions are called, is executed by the childprocess.exec function.
PoC
const madge = require('madge');
madge('..', {graphVizPath: "touch HELLO;"}) .then((res) => res.svg()) .then((writtenImagePath) => { console.log('Image written to ' + writtenImagePath); });
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | madge | all versions | 4.0.1npm install madge@4.0.1 |
Affected Products
madgemadge_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 madge, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update madge to 4.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-23352 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Until you can upgrade, make sure every query built from user input uses parameterised statements or a prepared-statement API rather than string concatenation, and reduce the database account's privileges so an injected query cannot read or alter data beyond what the feature needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-23352 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.