GHSA-5vv4-hvf7-2h46 — Command Injection via Unsanitized `locate` Output in `versions()` — systeminformation

Affected: npm: systeminformation

# Command Injection via Unsanitized `locate` Output in `versions()` — systeminformation

**Package:** systeminformation (npm) **Tested Version:** 5.30.7 **Affected Platform:** Linux **Author:** Sebastian Hildebrandt **Weekly Downloads:** ~5,000,000+ **Repository:** https://github.com/sebhildebrandt/systeminformation **Severity:** Medium **CWE:** CWE-78 (OS Command Injection)

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### The Vulnerable Code Path

Inside the `versions()` function, when detecting the PostgreSQL version on Linux, the code does this:

```javascript // lib/osinfo.js — lines 770-776

exec('locate bin/postgres', (error, stdout) => { if (!error) { const postgresqlBin = stdout.toString().split('\n').sort(); if (postgresqlBin.length) { exec(postgresqlBin[postgresqlBin.length - 1] + ' -V', (error, stdout) => { // parses version string... }); } } }); ```

Here's what happens step by step:

1. It runs `locate bin/postgres` to search the filesystem for PostgreSQL binaries 2. It splits the output by newline and sorts the results alphabetically 3. It takes the **last element** (highest alphabetically) 4. It concatenates that path directly into a new `exec()` call with `+ ' -V'`

**No `sanitizeShellString()`. No path validation. No `execFile()`. Raw string concatenation into `exec()`.**

The `locate` command reads from a system-wide database (`plocate.db` or `mlocate.db`) that indexes all filenames on the system. If any indexed filename contains shell metachar…

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GHSA-5vv4-hvf7-2h46 — Command Injection via Unsanitized `locate` Output in `versions()` — systeminformation