CVE-2026-40261

HIGH

Composer has Command Injection via Malicious Perforce Reference

Title source: cna
STIX 2.1

Exploitation Summary

EIP tracks 2 public exploits for CVE-2026-40261. PoCs published by terminat0r7031, daptheHuman.

AI-analyzed exploit summary This repository contains a functional proof-of-concept for command injection vulnerabilities in Composer's Perforce VCS driver (CVE-2026-40261 and CVE-2026-40176). It demonstrates two attack vectors via unsanitized 'url' and 'p4user' fields in composer.json, leading to arbitrary command execution.

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::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.

Exploits (2)

nomisec WORKING POC 1 stars
by terminat0r7031 · poc
https://github.com/terminat0r7031/composer-CVE-2026-40261-CVE-2026-40176-PoC

This repository contains a functional proof-of-concept for command injection vulnerabilities in Composer's Perforce VCS driver (CVE-2026-40261 and CVE-2026-40176). It demonstrates two attack vectors via unsanitized 'url' and 'p4user' fields in composer.json, leading to arbitrary command execution.

Classification
Working Poc 95%
Attack Type
Rce
Complexity
Trivial
Reliability
Reliable
Target: Composer 2.9.3
No auth needed
Prerequisites: Docker · vulnerable Composer version (2.9.3)
devstral-2 · analyzed Apr 16, 2026 Full analysis →
github WRITEUP
by daptheHuman · poc
https://github.com/daptheHuman/cve-2026-40176-cve-2026-40261

This repository provides a detailed technical analysis of CVE-2026-40176, a command injection vulnerability in Composer's Perforce repository driver. It includes a proof-of-concept setup with vulnerable and patched Composer versions, along with reproduction steps and mitigation guidance.

Classification
Writeup 95%
Attack Type
Rce
Complexity
Moderate
Reliability
Reliable
Target: Composer < 2.2.27
No auth needed
Prerequisites: Composer < 2.2.27 · Perforce repository configuration in composer.json
devstral-2 · analyzed May 01, 2026 Full analysis →

References (2)

Core 2
Core References

Scores

CVSS v3 8.8
EPSS 0.0004
EPSS Percentile 13.1%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

CISA SSVC

Vulnrichment
Exploitation none
Automatable no
Technical Impact total

Details

CWE
CWE-20 CWE-78
Status published
Products (4)
composer/composer 2.3.0 - 2.9.6Packagist
composer/composer >= 1.0.0, < 2.2.27
composer/composer >= 2.3.0, < 2.9.6
getcomposer/composer 1.0.0 - 2.2.26
Published Apr 15, 2026
Tracked Since Apr 16, 2026