🛡️ CVE-2021-42740 on Debian — node-shell-quote

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

The shell-quote package before 1.7.3 for Node.js allows command injection. An attacker can inject unescaped shell metacharacters through a regex designed to support Windows drive letters. If the output of this package is passed to a real shell as a quoted argument to a command with exec(), an attacker can inject arbitrary commands. This is because the Windows drive letter regex character class is {A-z] instead of the correct {A-Za-z]. Several shell metacharacters exist in the space between capital letter Z and lower case letter a, such as the backtick character.

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2021-42740 as tracked by Debian, for the package node-shell-quote. The fix is available in version 1.7.3+~1.7.1-1; earlier versions remain affected.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity high, availability high.

Weakness class

DEBIAN-CVE-2021-42740 is classified as CWE-77: Command Injection. User input is placed into a command that the system interprets, allowing extra commands to be appended to the intended one.

Affected software

DEBIAN-CVE-2021-42740 is recorded against 1 package.

  • node-shell-quote (fixed in 1.7.3+~1.7.1-1)

Timeline and source

Published on 21 October 2021 and last revised on 4 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security-tracker.debian.org (Advisory)

CVE-2021-42740 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2021-10-21
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-04
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
node-shell-quote — 1.7.3+~1.7.1-1

Similar Threats

Exploit Protection

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DEBIAN-CVE-2021-42740 carries CVSS 9.5 Critical rating. BotEraser checks your installation against this and other known CVE records, and blocks IPs associated with exploit activity.

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