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Fencer Vulns
high 8.5

CVE-2026-53511 json

calibre: Arbitrary Code Execution in Template Formatter via Book Metadata

published 2026-07-07 4 mo ago modified 2026-10-25 14 d ago also EUVD-2026-42102

cvss
8.5
version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

calibre is an e-book manager. Prior to 9.10.0, a malicious EPUB, OPF, or PDF file can execute arbitrary Python code when its metadata is read by calibre, including through Add books or Edit books, by embedding a custom column definition with a python: template in calibre:user_metadata that is passed unsanitized to exec() in the template formatter. This issue is fixed in version 9.10.0.

Patch / fix

  • calibre-ebook calibre 9.10.0
  • calibre Debian 12 6.13.0+repack-2+deb12u10
  • calibre Debian 14 9.10.0+ds+~0.10.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53511

  • calibre openSUSE Tumbleweed 9.10.0-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:11130-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-53511 updated cvss 7.8

calibre: Calibre: Arbitrary code execution via malicious e-book file processing

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
4 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre/security/advisories/GHSA-2j4m-2q7x-2c47 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 8.5 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 8.5 CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:P/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X

Affected products

  • kovidgoyal calibre

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-94 Improper Control of Generation of Code

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.