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CVE-2026-73414 — shescape

Fix: ericcornelissen/shescape@43d70b5

CVE-2026-73414 is a OS Command Injection vulnerability in shescape. A fix is available for shescape — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Shescape: Shell injection via unescaped parentheses on Windows with CMD

Also known asGHSA-w4hw-qcx7-56pr
Published
Updated
Affected
2 pkgs
Patched
2 / 2
Exploits
None indexed
Exploitation data as of Nov 12, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
  • A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
  • 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-2026-73414.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs60th percentile — riskier than 60% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.02%0.48%0.93%1.39%0.5%0.9%0.9%0.9%Sep 26Nov 26Nov 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

Real-World Exposure

2 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.

23other npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream
shescapenpm
31Kdownloads / week

Description

Impact

This impacts users of Shescape on Windows that explicitly configure shell to CMD, or true with the default shell being CMD, using the escape and escapeAll APIs.

An attacker may be able to achieve shell injection depending on the original command.

import * as cp from "node:child_process";
import { Shescape } from "shescape";

// 1. Prerequisites
const options = {
    shell: "cmd.exe",
    // Or
    shell: true, // Only if the default shell is CMD
};

// 2. Payload
const payload = "x) else if a==a (echo y";

// 3. Usage
const shescape = new Shescape(options);
let escapedPayload;

escapedPayload = shescape.escape(payload);
// Or
escapedPayload = shescape.escapeAll([payload]);

// And (example)
const result = cp.execSync(`if defined FALSY (echo ${escapedPayload})`, options);

// 4. Impact
console.log(result.toString());
// Outputs "y" instead of ""

Patches

This bug has been patched in [v2.1.14] and [v3.0.1] which you can upgrade to now.

If you are already using v3 of Shescape, no further changes are required. If you are using v2 of Shescape is recommended to upgrade as this version reaches end-of-life status on 2026-09-28, follow the [migration guide] to upgrade to v3.

No patches will be released for version of Shescape lower than v2.0.0.

Workarounds

Alternatively, users of Shescape can remove all instances of ( and ) from untrusted inputs.

For more information

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
📦npmshescapeall versions2.1.14npm install shescape@2.1.14
📦npmshescape≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.0.13.0.1npm install shescape@3.0.1

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

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

  2. Fix

    Update shescape to 2.1.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-73414 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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 This impacts users of Shescape on Windows that explicitly configure `shell` to CMD, or `true` with the default shell being CMD, using the `escape` and `escapeAll` APIs. An attacker may be able to achieve shell injection depending on the original command. ```javascript import * as cp from "node:child_process"; import { Shescape } from "shescape"; // 1. Prerequisites const options = { shell: "cmd.exe", // Or shell: true, // Only if the default shell is CMD }; // 2. Payload const payload = "x) else if a==a (echo y"; // 3. Usage const shescape = new Shescape(options);
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2026-73414: shescape — Fixed in 2.1.14