CVE-2017-17520 — tools/url_handler

tools/url_handler.pl in TIN 2.4.1 does not validate strings before launching the program specified by the BROWSER environment variable, which might allow remote attackers to conduct argument-injection attacks via a crafted URL. NOTE: a third party has reported that this is intent

01What is this vulnerability?

tools/url_handler.pl in TIN 2.4.1 does not validate strings before launching the program specified by the BROWSER environment variable, which might allow remote attackers to conduct argument-injection attacks via a crafted URL. NOTE: a third party has reported that this is intentional behavior, because the documentation states "url_handler.pl was designed to work together with tin which only…

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2017-12-14T16:29:00.620
• Last modified: 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033

09References

• security-tracker.debian.org — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-17520
• security-tracker.debian.org — https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2017-17520