CVE-2022-25865 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.1) CWE-88 vulnerability in workspace-tools. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for workspace-tools — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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.
workspace-toolsnpmDescription
The package workspace-tools before 0.18.4 are vulnerable to Command Injection via git argument injection. When calling the fetchRemoteBranch(remote: string, remoteBranch: string, cwd: string) function, both the remote and remoteBranch parameters are passed to the git fetch subcommand in a way that additional flags can be set. The additional flags can be used to perform a command injection.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | workspace-tools | all versions | 0.18.4npm install workspace-tools@0.18.4 |
Affected Products
workspace-toolsmicrosoftResearch 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 workspace-tools, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update workspace-tools to 0.18.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-25865 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-2022-25865 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.