A flaw was found in Exuberant Ctags in the way it handles the "-o" option. This option specifies the tag filename. A crafted tag filename specified in the command line or in the configuration file results in arbitrary command execution because the externalSortTags() in sort.c calls the system(3) function in an unsafe way.
Severity
CVSS 3.1
7.8 high
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.6% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days; higher than 49% of CVEs (scores of 2026-10-31)