PT-2020-8665 · Pip+1 · Pip+1

Blake Griffith · Published 2020-05-08 · Updated 2025-08-13 · CVE-2018-20225

Positive Technologies (AI Summary)

CVSS v3.1

7.8

High

Base vector

AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions: pip (all versions)

Description: An issue was discovered in pip because it installs the version with the highest version number, even if the user had intended to obtain a private package from a private index. This only affects use of the --extra-index-url option, and exploitation requires that the package does not already exist in the public index, allowing an attacker to put the package there with an arbitrary version number. It has been reported that this is intended functionality and the user is responsible for using --extra-index-url securely.

Recommendations: As a temporary workaround, consider using the --extra-index-url option securely to minimize the risk of exploitation. At the moment, there is no information about a newer version that contains a fix for this vulnerability.

RCE

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-20

Related Identifiers

CVE-2018-20225

ECHO-072A-9FF7-3371

Affected Products

Debian

Pip

References · 14

• https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2018-20225 · Vendor Advisory
• https://osv.dev/vulnerability/UBUNTU-CVE-2018-20225 · Vendor Advisory
• https://osv.dev/vulnerability/DEBIAN-CVE-2018-20225 · Vendor Advisory
• https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-20225 · Security Note
• https://osv.dev/vulnerability/ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2018-20225 · Vendor Advisory
• https://cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2018-20225 · Security Note
• https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/news · Vendor Advisory
• https://ubuntu.com/security/CVE-2018-20225 · Vendor Advisory
• https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2018-20225 · Vendor Advisory
• https://t.me/cvenotify/3682 · Telegram Post
• https://cowlicks.website/posts/arbitrary-code-execution-from-pips-extra-index-url.html · Note
• https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/rb1adce798445facd032870d644eb39c4baaf9c4a7dd5477d12bb6ab2%40%3Cgithub.arrow.apache.org%3E · Note
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1835736 · Note
• https://t.me/cibsecurity/11974 · Telegram Post