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CVE-2026-40176 Detail

Description

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::generateP4Command() method, which constructs shell commands by interpolating user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) without proper escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through these values in a malicious composer.json declaring a Perforce VCS repository, leading to command execution in the context of the user running Composer, even if Perforce is not installed. VCS repositories are only loaded from the root composer.json or the composer config directory, so this cannot be exploited through composer.json files of packages installed as dependencies. Users are at risk if they run Composer commands on untrusted projects with attacker-supplied composer.json files. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6 (mainline).


Metrics

NVD enrichment efforts reference publicly available information to associate vector strings. CVSS information contributed by other sources is also displayed.
CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
N/A
NVD assessment not yet provided.

References to Advisories, Solutions, and Tools

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URL Source(s) Tag(s)
https://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.9.6 GitHub, Inc.
https://github.com/composer/composer/security/advisories/GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p GitHub, Inc.

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-20 Improper Input Validation GitHub, Inc.  
CWE-78 Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in an OS Command ('OS Command Injection') GitHub, Inc.  

Change History

1 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2026-40176
NVD Published Date:
04/15/2026
NVD Last Modified:
04/15/2026
Source:
GitHub, Inc.