Composer: Perforce Settings in an Untrusted composer.json Can Run Commands
Published as "Command injection via malicious Perforce repository definition"
- CVE
- CVE-2026-40176
- GHSA
- GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p
- Packagist
- PKSA-6bp1-9hfj-2cgv
- Reported
- Apr 14, 2026
Lets a malicious project's composer.json run commands on your machine when you run Composer in it, even without Perforce installed.
Affected and fixed versions
In composer/composer.
Find the row for the version you run, and update to the release next to it.
| If you run | Update to | Support |
|---|---|---|
| 2.3 – 2.9.5 | 2.9.6 | Supported |
Show 1 older branch, no longer supported
| 1.0 – 2.2.26 | 2.2.27 |
Upgrade
Run the line for the branch you are on.
composer require composer/composer:^2.9.6
Check your app with an agent
Paste this into a coding agent that can read your project, such as Claude Code, Codex or Amp. It checks your composer.lock against the versions above and tells you what to update, without changing anything.
Check whether the PHP project you have access to is affected by this security advisory, and tell me what to update. Do a read-only check: don't edit files, don't run composer update or composer require, and don't try to reproduce the flaw. Advisory: Composer: Perforce Settings in an Untrusted composer.json Can Run Commands (CVE-2026-40176, GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p) Details: https://phpnews.net/security/composer/ghsa-wg36-wvj6-r67p Affected versions, as Composer constraints: - composer/composer: >=2.3,<2.9.6|>=1.0,<2.2.27 Fixed releases on branches that still get security fixes: - 2.3 – 2.9.5: update to 2.9.6 1. Find every composer.lock in the project outside vendor/ (a monorepo can have one per app) and read the installed version of each package above. Packages installed as dependencies of other packages count too. 2. Compare each installed version with its constraint: "|" separates alternative ranges, and "," means both bounds apply. 3. For each affected install, read the project's advisory at https://github.com/composer/composer/security/advisories/GHSA-wg36-wvj6-r67p and check whether the project meets the conditions it describes. Say which conditions you could check and which you couldn't. 4. Report a table: lock file | package | installed version | affected (yes, no or unknown) | conditions met (yes, no or unknown) | update to | evidence. For each affected package, give the command that would fix it, without running it: composer update <package> --with-dependencies when it is only installed as a dependency of another package, or composer require with the fixed version when composer.json requires it directly. If the installed version is on a branch with no fixed release listed, say it needs a move to a newer branch.