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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.8

CVE-2023-38690 json

matrix-appservice-irc IRC command injection via admin commands containing newlines

published 2023-08-04 3 y ago modified 2026-09-10 1 mo ago also GHSA-3pmj-jqqp-2mj3 , EUVD-2023-2196

cvss
5.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.9%
EPSS 0.9% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 58%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

matrix-appservice-irc is a Node.js IRC bridge for Matrix. Prior to version 1.0.1, it is possible to craft a command with newlines which would not be properly parsed. This would mean you could pass a string of commands as a channel name, which would then be run by the IRC bridge bot. Versions 1.0.1 and above are patched. There are no robust workarounds to the bug. One may disable dynamic channels in the config to disable the most common execution method but others may exist.

Patch / fix

  • npm matrix-appservice-irc 1.0.1
  • matrix-org matrix-appservice-irc 1.0.1

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 y ago

Exploit prediction

0.86% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 58% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N
NVD 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 5.0 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
npm matrix-appservice-irc
<1.0.1
1.0.1

Affected products

  • matrix-org matrix-appservice-irc

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
  • CWE-77 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a 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.