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Vulnerability · Published Sep 17, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

CVE-2026-53534JabRef CAYW Sublime Text integration permits operating-system command injection

High 7.5

In plain English

A high-severity OS command injection in jabref from JabRef. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 39% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 4.0)7.5High
Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 61.0% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

JabRef is a desktop application for managing BibTeX and BibLaTeX libraries. Prior to 6.0-alpha.6, when jabsrv or JabRef's built-in HTTP server is enabled, the GET /better-bibtex/cayw endpoint accepts an external command query parameter and CAYWQueryParams.getCommand() passes it through CAYWResource.getCitation() into PushToSublimeText.getCommandLine(). On Unix-like systems, PushToSublimeText combines this untrusted cite-command prefix and citation keys into a string executed through sh -c by ProcessBuilder without shell escaping. A client that can cause a localhost request with application=sublime can inject shell metacharacters and execute operating-system commands as the JabRef user when a valid Sublime Text command path is configured and the victim completes the CAYW selection dialog. The built-in server is disabled by default, so exploitation requires the victim to enable it or run jabsrv. This issue is fixed in version 6.0-alpha.6.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu:26.10jabrefno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2026-53534

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
JabRef jabref < 6.0-alpha.6

Weakness: CWE-78 · Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:A/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

References