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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2026-53534 json

JabRef CAYW Sublime Text integration permits operating-system command injection

published 2026-09-17 52 d ago modified 2026-09-24 45 d ago also EUVD-2026-82565

cvss
7.5
version 4.0, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

JabRef is a desktop application for managing BibTeX and BibLaTeX libraries. Prior to 6.0-alpha.6, when jabsrv or JabRef's built-in HTTP server is enabled, the GET /better-bibtex/cayw endpoint accepts an external command query parameter and CAYWQueryParams.getCommand() passes it through CAYWResource.getCitation() into PushToSublimeText.getCommandLine(). On Unix-like systems, PushToSublimeText combines this untrusted cite-command prefix and citation keys into a string executed through sh -c by ProcessBuilder without shell escaping. A client that can cause a localhost request with application=sublime can inject shell metacharacters and execute operating-system commands as the JabRef user when a valid Sublime Text command path is configured and the victim completes the CAYW selection dialog. The built-in server is disabled by default, so exploitation requires the victim to enable it or run jabsrv. This issue is fixed in version 6.0-alpha.6.

Patch / fix

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-2026-53534 updated cvss 6.7

JabRef: JabRef: Operating-system command injection via CAYW Sublime Text integration

  • 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
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
45 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.45% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 7.5 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 7.5 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/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

  • JabRef jabref

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command

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.