Cyber Resilience

CVE-2022-4515

HighPublic PoC

Published: 20 December 2022

Published
20 December 2022
Modified
14 April 2025
KEV Added
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Patch
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CVSS Score v3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0056 68.8th percentile
Risk Priority 16 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2022-4515 is a high-severity OS Command Injection (CWE-78) vulnerability in Exuberant Ctags Project Exuberant Ctags. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, ranked in the top 31.2% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

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…

more

because the externalSortTags() in sort.c calls the system(3) function in an unsafe way.

CWE(s)
CWE-78NVD-CWE-noinfo

Related Threats

No named actor attribution yet. ATT&CK technique mapping in progress for this CVE.

Affected Assets

exuberant ctags project
exuberant ctags
all versions
debian
debian linux
10.0

Mitigating Controls

Likely Mitigating Controls AI

Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.

SC-27 Platform-independent Applications
addresses: CWE-78

Platform-independent apps typically execute inside a managed runtime or sandbox that restricts direct OS command execution, reducing the ability to exploit OS command injection.

SI-10 Information Input Validation
addresses: CWE-78

Validates inputs to block special elements that would alter OS command execution.

References