CVE-2023-28617 — org-babel-execute:latex in ob-latex

org-babel-execute:latex in ob-latex.el in Org Mode through 9.6.1 for GNU Emacs allows attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a file name or directory name that contains shell metacharacters.

01What is this vulnerability?

org-babel-execute:latex in ob-latex.el in Org Mode through 9.6.1 for GNU Emacs allows attackers to execute arbitrary commands via a file name or directory name that contains shell metacharacters.

02Affected products

Vendor	Product	Versions
n	a / n/a	n/a

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: 2023-03-19T00:00:00.000Z
• Last modified: 2025-11-03T20:35:28.705Z

09References

• list.orgmode.org — https://list.orgmode.org/tencent_04CF842704737012CCBCD63CD654DD41CA0A%40qq.com/T…
• git.savannah.gnu.org — https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git/commit/?id=8f8ec2ccf3f5ef8f…
• git.savannah.gnu.org — https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs/org-mode.git/commit/?id=a8006ea580ed74f2…
• lists.debian.org — https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/05/msg00008.html
• lists.debian.org — https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2023/10/msg00019.html