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GuardDog: Unsanitized human-readable scan output allows terminal escape injection from malicious package content

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published May 6, 2026 in DataDog/guarddog • Updated Jun 8, 2026

Package

pip guarddog (pip)

Affected versions

>= 2.6.0, <= 2.9.0

Patched versions

None

Description

Summary

GuardDog includes attacker-controlled filenames, file locations, messages, and code snippets in its default human-readable output without escaping terminal control characters. A malicious package can therefore inject ANSI or OSC escape sequences into analyst terminals or CI logs.

Description

The finding formatter stores file paths and snippets from scanned content:

location = file_path + ":" + str(start_line)
finding = {
    "location": location,
    "code": code,
    "message": result["extra"]["message"],
}

The human-readable reporter later prints these values directly:

"  * " + finding["message"] + " at " + finding["location"] + "\n    " + _format_code_line_for_output(finding["code"])

No escaping is applied for control characters such as \x1b. A malicious package can therefore ship a filename like:

evil\x1b[2J.py

or matched source lines containing terminal escapes, which survive into the final CLI output.

Reproduction summary

  1. Create a file whose name contains \x1b[2J.
  2. Feed a semgrep-style result referencing that file into Analyzer._format_semgrep_response().
  3. Render the result with HumanReadableReporter.print_scan_results().
  4. The output string contains the raw escape bytes, which a terminal may interpret.

Key code paths

  • guarddog/analyzer/analyzer.py:377-392
  • guarddog/reporters/human_readable.py:36-42
  • guarddog/reporters/human_readable.py:84-91

Practical impact

This can be used to:

  • clear or rewrite analyst terminal output
  • inject misleading or spoofed log content in CI
  • emit clickable OSC 8 hyperlinks or title changes in compatible terminals

Prior public disclosure check

As of 2026-03-18, no matching public GitHub advisory, CVE, or public repo issue was found for this specific bug.

Suggested fix

Escape or strip terminal control characters before rendering any attacker-controlled value in human-readable output. This should cover package names, file paths, messages, and code snippets.

References

@sobregosodd sobregosodd published to DataDog/guarddog May 6, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 11, 2026
Reviewed May 11, 2026
Published by the National Vulnerability Database May 27, 2026
Last updated Jun 8, 2026

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Local
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(4th percentile)

Weaknesses

Improper Encoding or Escaping of Output

The product prepares a structured message for communication with another component, but encoding or escaping of the data is either missing or done incorrectly. As a result, the intended structure of the message is not preserved. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-44972

GHSA ID

GHSA-m5p4-gvpx-4mvr

Source code

Credits

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