CVE-2013-5123

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.9 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 8.0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: yes
Published: 2019-11-05 · updated 2026-06-16
Weakness: CWE-287

Description

The mirroring support (-M, --use-mirrors) in Python Pip before 1.5 uses insecure DNS querying and authenticity checks which allows attackers to perform man-in-the-middle attacks.

Affected products

Debian Linux: 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
Fedoraproject Fedora: 20, 21
Python Packaging Authority pip: before 1.5 — fixed in 1.5
Openshift: 1.0, 2.0
RedHat Software Collections: all versions
pypa virtualenv: 12.0.7

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Python Packaging Authority pip 1.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2015-April/155248.html
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2015-April/155291.html
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/08/21/17
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/08/21/18
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/77520
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2013-5123
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=CVE-2013-5123
https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2013-5123
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2015-April/155248.html
http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2015-April/155291.html
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/08/21/17
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2013/08/21/18

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