OS Command Injection Affecting composer package, versions <0:2.9.7-1.hum1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
high
0
10

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.05% (16th percentile)

Do your applications use this vulnerable package?

In a few clicks we can analyze your entire application and see what components are vulnerable in your application, and suggest you quick fixes.

Test your applications

Snyk Learn

Learn about OS Command Injection vulnerabilities in an interactive lesson.

Start learning
  • Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL10-COMPOSER-16101634
  • published18 Apr 2026
  • disclosed15 Apr 2026

Introduced: 15 Apr 2026

CVE-2026-40261  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-78  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade RHEL:10 composer to version 0:2.9.7-1.hum1 or higher.
This issue was patched in RHSA-2026:8165.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream composer package and not the composer package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:10 relevant fixed versions and status.

Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::syncCodeBase() method, which appends the $sourceReference parameter to a shell command without proper escaping, and additionally in the Perforce::generateP4Command() method as in GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p / CVE-2026-40176, which interpolates user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) from the source url field without proper escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through crafted source reference or source url values containing shell metacharacters, even if Perforce is not installed. Unlike CVE-2026-40176, the source reference and url are provided as part of package metadata, meaning any compromised or malicious Composer repository can serve package metadata declaring perforce as a source type with malicious values. This vulnerability is exploitable when installing or updating dependencies from source, including the default behavior when installing dev-prefixed versions. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6 (mainline). If developers are unable to immediately update, they can avoid installing dependencies from source by using --prefer-dist or the preferred-install: dist config setting, and only use trusted Composer repositories as a workaround.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1