Vulnerability in composer/composer (CVE-2026-40176)
Summary
Vulnerability in composer/composer (CVE-2026-40176). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. Mitigation: upgrade to 2.2.27 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. Versions 1.0 through 2.2.26 and 2.3 through 2.9.5 contain a command injection vulnerability in the Perforce::generateP4Command() method, which constructs shell commands by interpolating user-supplied Perforce connection parameters (port, user, client) without proper escaping. An attacker can inject arbitrary commands through these values in a malicious composer.json declaring a Perforce VCS repository, leading to command execution in the context of the user running Composer, even if Perforce is not installed. VCS repositories are only loaded from the root composer.json or the composer config directory, so this cannot be exploited through composer.json files of packages installed as dependencies. Users are at risk if they run Composer commands on untrusted projects with attacker-supplied composer.json files. This issue has been fixed in Composer 2.2.27 (2.2 LTS) and 2.9.6 (mainline).
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database NVD GitHub Advisory
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-40176 has been found in composer/composer.
Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover. CVSS score: 7.8/10.
What to do: upgrade composer/composer to 2.2.27 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "composer/composer CVE-2026-40176" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-40176 (composer/composer) — CWE-20 / CVSS v3 7.8
Attack vector: local / unauthenticated
Patched: 2.2.27 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (CWE-20) exists in composer/composer.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of composer/composer.
Severity: High (CVSS 7.8/10). Successful exploitation can lead to full system takeover.
Update to 2.2.27.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'composer/composer' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
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1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'composer/composer' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
composer/composerを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Apply patch patch
Upgrade composer/composer to 2.2.27ステージング環境で 2.2.27 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
-
3Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Affected packages
Fix status by distribution
Fixed packages published by each distribution for this CVE
- Debian DEBIAN-CVE-2026-40176 composer
- Ubuntu UBUNTU-CVE-2026-40176 composer
References
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web access.redhat.com
- web access.redhat.com
- web bugzilla.redhat.com
- web security.access.redhat.com
- web github.com
- web nvd.nist.gov
- web github.com