[3.13] gh-143930: Reject leading dashes in webbrowser URLs (GH-146215)

(cherry picked from commit 82a24a4442312bdcfc4c799885e8b3e00990f02b)

Co-authored-by: Seth Michael Larson <seth@python.org>

diff --git a/Lib/test/test_webbrowser.py b/Lib/test/test_webbrowser.py
index 4fcbc5c2e59ea311fe5fa7a40b638f0a86900a63..171388e64d6de81b396d398fe9390f08d371a22c 100644 (file)
--- a/Lib/test/test_webbrowser.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_webbrowser.py
@@ -65,6 +65,11 @@ class GenericBrowserCommandTest(CommandTestMixin, unittest.TestCase):
                    options=[],
                    arguments=[URL])
 
+    def test_reject_dash_prefixes(self):
+        browser = self.browser_class(name=CMD_NAME)
+        with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
+            browser.open(f"--key=val {URL}")
+
 
 class BackgroundBrowserCommandTest(CommandTestMixin, unittest.TestCase):
 

diff --git a/Lib/webbrowser.py b/Lib/webbrowser.py
index 2f9555ad60dde47f51ae5be3b98ffc34cec9557c..e322cbf5d1700ac8aa57757bf021fe047e7f421b 100755 (executable)
--- a/Lib/webbrowser.py
+++ b/Lib/webbrowser.py
@@ -164,6 +164,12 @@ class BaseBrowser:
     def open_new_tab(self, url):
         return self.open(url, 2)
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def _check_url(url):
+        """Ensures that the URL is safe to pass to subprocesses as a parameter"""
+        if url and url.lstrip().startswith("-"):
+            raise ValueError(f"Invalid URL: {url}")
+
 
 class GenericBrowser(BaseBrowser):
     """Class for all browsers started with a command
@@ -181,6 +187,7 @@ class GenericBrowser(BaseBrowser):
 
     def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
         sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+        self._check_url(url)
         cmdline = [self.name] + [arg.replace("%s", url)
                                  for arg in self.args]
         try:
@@ -201,6 +208,7 @@ class BackgroundBrowser(GenericBrowser):
         cmdline = [self.name] + [arg.replace("%s", url)
                                  for arg in self.args]
         sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+        self._check_url(url)
         try:
             if sys.platform[:3] == 'win':
                 p = subprocess.Popen(cmdline)
@@ -267,6 +275,7 @@ class UnixBrowser(BaseBrowser):
 
     def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
         sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+        self._check_url(url)
         if new == 0:
             action = self.remote_action
         elif new == 1:
@@ -358,6 +367,7 @@ class Konqueror(BaseBrowser):
 
     def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
         sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+        self._check_url(url)
         # XXX Currently I know no way to prevent KFM from opening a new win.
         if new == 2:
             action = "newTab"
@@ -576,6 +586,7 @@ if sys.platform[:3] == "win":
     class WindowsDefault(BaseBrowser):
         def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
             sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+            self._check_url(url)
             try:
                 os.startfile(url)
             except OSError:
@@ -596,6 +607,7 @@ if sys.platform == 'darwin':
 
         def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
             sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+            self._check_url(url)
             url = url.replace('"', '%22')
             if self.name == 'default':
                 script = f'open location "{url}"'  # opens in default browser
@@ -627,6 +639,7 @@ if sys.platform == "ios":
     class IOSBrowser(BaseBrowser):
         def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
             sys.audit("webbrowser.open", url)
+            self._check_url(url)
             # If ctypes isn't available, we can't open a browser
             if objc is None:
                 return False

diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Security/2026-01-16-12-04-49.gh-issue-143930.zYC5x3.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Security/2026-01-16-12-04-49.gh-issue-143930.zYC5x3.rst
new file mode 100644 (file)
index 0000000..0f27eae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Security/2026-01-16-12-04-49.gh-issue-143930.zYC5x3.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Reject leading dashes in URLs passed to :func:`webbrowser.open`