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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2017-18266 json

The open_envvar function in xdg-open in xdg-utils before 1.1.3 does not validate strings before launching the program specified by the BROW…

published 2018-05-10 8 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2017-9393

cvss
8.8
version 3.0, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
2.4%
EPSS 2.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 84%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

The open_envvar function in xdg-open in xdg-utils before 1.1.3 does not validate strings before launching the program specified by the BROWSER environment variable, which might allow remote attackers to conduct argument-injection attacks via a crafted URL, as demonstrated by %s in this environment variable.

Patch / fix

  • freedesktop xdg-utils 1.1.3
  • xdg-utils Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1.1.3-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2017-18266

  • xdg-utils Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 1.1.0~rc1-2ubuntu7.2
  • xdg-utils Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 1.1.1-1ubuntu1.16.04.3
  • xdg-utils Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 1.1.2-1ubuntu2.2

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2017-18266

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • xdg-utils SLES for SAP 12 SP3, SLES 12 SP3, SLED 12 SP3 20140630-6.3.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2018:1497-1

  • xdg-utils openSUSE Tumbleweed 1.1.3+20201113-1.2

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2024:11518-1

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-2017-18266 updated cvss 4.4

xdg-utils: Argument injection vulnerability in open_envvar() function

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 xdg-utils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 xdg-utils Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 xdg-utils
    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

Exploit prediction

2.40% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 84% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.0 8.8 CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 2.0 6.8 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-74 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component

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.