CVE-2026-17431: PDF::WebKit versions through 1.2 for Perl allow OS command injection via a 2-arg open() of the output path in to_pdf and of stylesheet paths in _style_tag_for

PDF::WebKit versions through 1.2 for Perl allow OS command injection via a 2-arg open() of the output path in topdf and of stylesheet paths in styletagfor.

topdf reads the generated PDF back from its path argument, and styletagfor reads each entry of the stylesheets list, by assigning the path to a local @ARGV and reading it with the diamond operator, which opens each @ARGV element with Perl's 2-arg open(). A value that begins or ends with a pipe ("| cmd", "cmd |") is run as a command rather than opened as a file, and one that begins with a redirect ("> path", ">> path") opens that path for write or append. tofile forwards its path argument to topdf and reaches the same read.

Any caller that forwards untrusted input as the output path or as a stylesheets entry can run a command under the process UID; with the "cmd |" form the command's output is returned in place of the PDF, and with the "> path" form the named file is truncated. Stylesheets may only be added to an HTML source, so a URL or file source exposes the output path alone.