flawfinder CVE-2026-48813
LOW
GHSA-4c3c-r6p8-c863
Severity by source
AV:L because attacker-controlled files must exist on the local filesystem being scanned; UI:R because a user must actively run flawfinder; I:L for manipulated tool output integrity; no confidentiality or availability impact.
Estimated by vuln.today — no official severity rating has been published for this CVE yet.
CVSS VectorNVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N
Lifecycle Timeline
2Blast Radius
ecosystem impact- 11 pypi packages depend on flawfinder (3 direct, 8 indirect)
Ecosystem-wide dependent count for version 2.0.20.
DescriptionCVE.org
Impact
This vulnerability is an improper input neutralization issue leading to output manipulation, specifically, Terminal/ANSI Escape Sequence Injection and XML Injection:
- Terminal Output Spoofing: A malicious file whose name contains ANSI escape sequences can end up being included in flawfinder's standard terminal output, with many effects. For example, this might allow an attacker to hide critical scan results, falsely making it appear to a human reviewer that no security issues were found.
- CSV and XML Injection: Untrusted fields (such as filenames, categories, or code context text) were not properly sanitized when generating structured reports. An attacker could exploit this to corrupt CSV formats or inject arbitrary XML attributes into SonarQube outputs via output_sonar().
It impacts those who use flawfinder to evaluate intentionally malicious filenames or file contents.
The initial filename injection problem was reported by Dan Lenz https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-lenz/
The other vulnerabilities were found by flawfinder project leader David A. Wheeler, GitHub david-a-wheeler, https://dwheeler.com/
Patches
This issue has been fully patched in Version 2.0.20 (released 2026-05-16). All users should upgrade to version 2.0.20 or later immediately. If you use Python's package manager, you can upgrade using pip install --upgrade flawfinder. If you are consuming flawfinder via GitHub Actions, ensure your workflow points to david-a-wheeler/flawfinder@2.0.20 or later.
Workarounds
There is no configuration-based workaround within older versions of flawfinder. If an immediate upgrade is not possible, users can mitigate the risk by:
- Pre-scanning filenames: Manually or programmatically verifying that target repositories do not contain filenames with control characters (including ANSI escape sequences) before passing them to flawfinder.
- Inspecting raw output: Reviewing flawfinder outputs in a text editor or logging mechanism that explicitly displays or strips raw escape sequences, rather than relying on live terminal rendering.
- Restricting untrusted inputs: Avoiding the generation of SonarQube or CSV reports from completely untrusted repositories until the tool is updated.
Resources
See the flawfinder GitHub Repository: https://github.com/david-a-wheeler/flawfinder
AnalysisAI
Output manipulation in flawfinder before version 2.0.20 allows an attacker who controls repository filenames or file content to inject ANSI escape sequences into terminal output, visually hiding or falsifying scan results from human reviewers. The same untrusted-input handling gap extends to structured report generation: CSV reports and SonarQube XML output (via the output_sonar() function) can be corrupted or attribute-injected when filenames, categories, or code context contain unescaped special characters. …
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Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata
Vulnerability AssessmentAI
| Exploitation | Exploitation requires that the attacker control filenames, directory names, or file content in a repository that is subsequently scanned by a vulnerable version of flawfinder (< 2.0.20). … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment. |
| Risk Assessment | The CVSS vector provided in the input (AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:N) is a placeholder with all impact metrics set to None and a score of N/A; it is non-informative for risk prioritization and should not be used. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in. |
| Exploit Scenario | An attacker submits a pull request or otherwise introduces a file into a repository whose name embeds ANSI escape sequences - for example, a filename containing ESC[2J (clear screen) or ESC[1A (cursor up) followed by overwrite text. When a security engineer or CI pipeline runs flawfinder against the repository in a standard terminal, the escape sequences render and visually suppress or replace the findings output, causing the reviewer to believe no vulnerabilities were detected. … |
| Remediation | Vendor-released patch: flawfinder 2.0.20, released 2026-05-16. … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report. |
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