PT-2026-38380 · Gotenberg · Gotenberg

S-Senhaji · Published 2026-05-07 · Updated 2026-06-25 · CVE-2026-42589

Positive Technologies (AI Summary)

CVSS v3.1

9.8

Critical

Base vector

AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions Gotenberg versions prior to 8.31.0

Description An unauthenticated remote attacker can achieve OS command execution via the '/forms/pdfengines/metadata/write' endpoint. The application accepts a JSON metadata object and passes its keys to ExifTool without validating for control characters. By embedding a newline character ( ) within a JSON key, an attacker can split the input stream to inject arbitrary ExifTool flags. Specifically, the -if flag can be used to evaluate Perl expressions, leading to arbitrary code execution. The attack is transparent to basic monitoring as the server returns an HTTP 200 response with a valid PDF.

Recommendations Update to version 8.31.0. As a temporary mitigation, restrict access to the '/forms/pdfengines/metadata/write' endpoint or place the service behind an authenticated reverse proxy to prevent untrusted access to port 3000.

Exploit

Fix

RCE

OS Command Injection

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-78

Related Identifiers

CVE-2026-42589

GHSA-RQGH-GXV4-6657

GO-2026-5636

Affected Products

Gotenberg

References · 8

• 🔥 https://github.com/gotenberg/gotenberg/security/advisories/GHSA-rqgh-gxv4-6657 · Exploit
• https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-rqgh-gxv4-6657 · Vendor Advisory
• https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GO-2026-5636 · Vendor Advisory
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-42589 · Security Note
• https://github.com/gotenberg/gotenberg · Note
• https://twitter.com/TechTranslators/status/2052496317230764450 · Twitter Post
• https://twitter.com/KaitanSecurity/status/2054969998972420359 · Twitter Post
• https://t.me/CVEtracker/53789 · Telegram Post