Gotenberg: Unauthenticated RCE via ExifTool Metadata Key Injection_CVE-2026-42589

9.8 / 10

CRITICAL

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Description

Gotenberg is a Docker-powered stateless API for PDF files. Prior to 8.31.0, Gotenberg's /forms/pdfengines/metadata/write HTTP endpoint accepts a JSON metadata object and passes its keys directly to ExifTool via the go-exiftool library. No validation is performed on key characters. A \n embedded in a JSON key splits the ExifTool stdin stream into a new argument line, allowing an attacker to inject arbitrary ExifTool flags — including -if, which evaluates Perl expressions. This achieves unauthenticated OS command execution in a single HTTP request. The response is HTTP 200 with a valid PDF, making the attack transparent to basic monitoring. This vulnerability is fixed in 8.31.0.

Basic Information

ID CVE-2026-42589

Source GitHub_M

Published May 14, 2026 at 15:11

Affected Product

Vendor gotenberg

Product gotenberg

Version < 8.31.0

Affected Versions gotenberg gotenberg < 8.31.0

CWE Classification

CWE-78

References

github.com /gotenberg/gotenberg/security/advisories/GHSA-rqgh-gxv4-6657

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