A flaw was found in Exuberant Ctags in the way it handles the "-o" option. This option specifies the tag filename. A crafted tag filename…

Description

A flaw was found in Exuberant Ctags in the way it handles the "-o" option. This option specifies the tag filename. A crafted tag filename specified in the command line or in the configuration file results in arbitrary command execution because the externalSortTags() in sort.c calls the system(3) function in an unsafe way.

Scores

EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)

0.61% · top 51% of all CVEs (6 Nov 2026)

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: partial

The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.

Weakness

• CWE-78 (opens in a new tab)All about CWE-78 and its CVEs

Affected products

• Exuberant Ctags

  • affected All versions are affected

References (2)

• https://sourceforge.net/p/ctags/code/HEAD/tree/tags/ctags-5.8/sort.c#l56 (opens in a new tab)x_transferred
• [debian-lts-announce] 20221231 [SECURITY] [DLA 3254-1] exuberant-ctags security update (opens in a new tab)mailing-listx_transferred

Sources

The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.

• CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
• CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
• NVD (opens in a new tab)
• FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
• OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
• GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
• CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)

Badge for a README or a ticket

[![CVE-2022-4515](https://trackcve.app/badge/CVE-2022-4515.svg)](https://trackcve.app/cve/CVE-2022-4515)

Record last updated 14 Apr 2025, 18:14 UTC.