gh-148169: Fix webbrowser %action substitution bypass of dash-prefix check (GH-148170)

(cherry picked from commit d22922c)

Co-authored-by: Stan Ulbrych <stan@python.org>

Author: StanFromIreland

Lib/test/test_webbrowser.py

@@ -118,6 +118,15 @@ def test_open_bad_new_parameter(self):
                        arguments=[URL],
                        kw=dict(new=999))
 
+    def test_reject_action_dash_prefixes(self):
+        browser = self.browser_class(name=CMD_NAME)
+        with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
+            browser.open('%action--incognito')
+        # new=1: action is "--new-window", so "%action" itself expands to
+        # a dash-prefixed flag even with no dash in the original URL.
+        with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
+            browser.open('%action', new=1)
+
 
 class EdgeCommandTest(CommandTestMixin, unittest.TestCase):
 

Lib/webbrowser.py

@@ -275,7 +275,6 @@ def _invoke(self, args, remote, autoraise, url=None):
 
     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:
@@ -289,7 +288,9 @@ def open(self, url, new=0, autoraise=True):
             raise Error("Bad 'new' parameter to open(); "
                         f"expected 0, 1, or 2, got {new}")
 
-        args = [arg.replace("%s", url).replace("%action", action)
+        self._check_url(url.replace("%action", action))
+
+        args = [arg.replace("%action", action).replace("%s", url)
                 for arg in self.remote_args]
         args = [arg for arg in args if arg]
         success = self._invoke(args, True, autoraise, url)

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Security/2026-03-31-09-15-51.gh-issue-148169.EZJzz2.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+A bypass in :mod:`webbrowser` allowed URLs prefixed with ``%action`` to pass
+the dash-prefix safety check.