How severe is CVE-2023-39956?

CVE-2023-39956 has a CVSS score of 6.1/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-39956?

CVE-2023-39956 affects the following packages: electron (npm), electron (npm), electron (npm), electron (npm), electron (npm). Ecosystems affected: npm.

How do I fix CVE-2023-39956?

Update electron to 22.3.19 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-39956 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2023-39956 in my npm dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for electron, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2023-39956 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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.

Is CVE-2023-39956 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2023-39956 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2023-39956?

CVE-2023-39956 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.5%, placing it in the 42th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2023-39956?

CVE-2023-39956 is classified as Code Injection (CWE-94). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation. This is a high-impact weakness class that often enables remote code execution or data exposure.

When was CVE-2023-39956 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2023-39956 was published on September 6, 2023 and was last updated on October 28, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

📦

📦 npm

Not in CISA KEV

MEDIUM severity

CVE-2023-39956 — electron

MEDIUM

CVE-2023-39956 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.1) Code Injection vulnerability in electron. A fix is available for electron — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Electron: Out-of-package code execution when launched with arbitrary cwd

Also known asGHSA-7x97-j373-85x5

Published

Sep 6, 2023

Updated

Oct 28, 2026

Affected

5 pkgs

Patched

5 / 5

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Nov 6, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-39956.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.5%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs42th percentile — riskier than 42% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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

5 pkgs affected

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.

2Kother npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream

electronnpm

12.5Mdownloads / week

Description

Impact

Apps that are launched as command line executables are impacted. E.g. if your app exposes itself in the path as myapp --help

Specifically this issue can only be exploited if the following conditions are met:

Your app is launched with an attacker-controlled working directory
The attacker has the ability to write files to that working directory

This makes the risk quite low, in fact normally issues of this kind are considered outside of our threat model as similar to Chromium we exclude Physically Local Attacks but given the ability for this issue to bypass certain protections like ASAR Integrity it is being treated with higher importance. Please bear this in mind when reporting similar issues in the future.

Workarounds

There are no app side workarounds, you must update to a patched version of Electron.

Fixed Versions

26.0.0-beta.13
25.5.0
24.7.1
23.3.13
22.3.19

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email us at [email protected]

Affected Packages

5 total 5 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
📦npm	`electron`	all versions	22.3.19`npm install electron@22.3.19`
📦npm	`electron`	≥ 23.0.0-alpha.1&&< 23.3.13	23.3.13`npm install electron@23.3.13`
📦npm	`electron`	≥ 24.0.0-alpha.1&&< 24.7.1	24.7.1`npm install electron@24.7.1`
📦npm	`electron`	≥ 25.0.0-alpha.1&&< 25.5.0	25.5.0`npm install electron@25.5.0`
📦npm	`electron`	≥ 26.0.0-alpha.1&&< 26.0.0-beta.13	26.0.0-beta.13`npm install electron@26.0.0-beta.13`

Affected Products

1 product · 24 configurations

Application

electronelectronjs

≥ 25.0.0 && < 25.5.0

1 version

26.0.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for electron, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update electron to 22.3.19 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-39956 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

### Impact Apps that are launched as command line executables are impacted. E.g. if your app exposes itself in the path as `myapp --help` Specifically this issue can only be exploited if the following conditions are met: * Your app is launched with an attacker-controlled working directory * The attacker has the ability to write files to that working directory This makes the risk quite low, in fact normally issues of this kind are considered outside of our threat model as similar to Chromium we exclude [Physically Local Attacks](https://github.com/electron/electron/security/advisories/GHSA-7