CVE-2024-41815 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.4) CWE-77 vulnerability in starship. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for starship — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Starship vulnerable to shell injection via undocumented, unpredictable shell expansion in custom commands
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-41815.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-41815 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,567 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
starshipReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Description
Starship is a cross-shell prompt. Starting in version 1.0.0 and prior to version 1.20.0, undocumented and unpredictable shell expansion and/or quoting rules make it easily to accidentally cause shell injection when using custom commands with starship in bash. Version 1.20.0 fixes the vulnerability.
PoC
Have some custom command which prints out information from a potentially untrusted/unverified source.
[custom.git_commit_name]
command = 'git show -s --format="%<(25,mtrunc)%s"'
style = "italic"
when = true
Impact
This issue only affects users with custom commands, so the scope is limited, and without knowledge of others' commands, it could be hard to successfully target someone.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | starship | ≥ 1.0.0&&< 1.20.0 | 1.20.0cargo update -p starship --precise 1.20.0 |
Research 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 starship, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update starship to 1.20.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-41815 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-41815 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-41815. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-41815 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-41815 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.