Exposure of home directory through shescape on Unix with BashGHSA-446w-rrm4-r47f
MEDIUMFix: ericcornelissen/shescape#170GHSA-446w-rrm4-r47f is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in shescape. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for shescape — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-446w-rrm4-r47f.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-446w-rrm4-r47f by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,987 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.
shescapenpmDescription
Impact
The issue allows for exposure of the home directory on Unix systems when using Bash with the escape or escapeAll functions from the shescape API with the interpolation option set to true. Other tested shells, Dash and Zsh, are not affected.
const cp = require("child_process");
const shescape = require("shescape");
const payload = "home_directory=~";
const options = { interpolation: true };
console.log(cp.execSync(`echo ${shescape.escape(payload, options)}`));
// home_directory=/home/user
Depending on how the output of shescape is used, directory traversal may be possible in the application using shescape.
Patches
The issue was patched in v1.5.1.
Workarounds
Manually escape all instances of the tilde character (~) using arg.replace(/~/g, "\\~").
References
See GitHub issue https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/issues/169.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | shescape | ≥ 1.4.0&&< 1.5.1 | 1.5.1npm install shescape@1.5.1 |
Affected Products
shescapeshescape_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 shescape, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update shescape to 1.5.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-446w-rrm4-r47f 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 GHSA-446w-rrm4-r47f in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.