CVE-2026-42589

critical · 9.8

A public exploit / detection template exists

Weaponised detection is publicly available, which meaningfully raises real-world risk regardless of CVSS. nuclei-templates →

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.

9.8

CVSS

3.0%

EPSS (exploit prob.)

87th

EPSS percentile

2026-05-14

Published

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

Weaknesses

CWE-78

Affected products

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
thecodingmachine	gotenberg	< 8.31.0

Check a specific version with /api/v1/cve/match.

References

Query this programmatically:

curl https://evil-db.io/api/v1/cve/CVE-2026-42589