How severe is CVE-2016-9015?

CVE-2016-9015 has a CVSS score of 3.7/10, rated LOW. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2016-9015?

CVE-2016-9015 affects the following packages: urllib3 (PyPI). Ecosystems affected: PyPI.

How do I fix CVE-2016-9015?

Update urllib3 to 1.18.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-9015 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2016-9015 in my PyPI dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for urllib3. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate CVE-2016-9015 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

How does O3 Security protect against CVE-2016-9015?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2016-9015 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2016-9015 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2016-9015 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2016-9015?

CVE-2016-9015 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.8%, placing it in the 51th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2016-9015?

CVE-2016-9015 is classified as CWE-295 (CWE-295). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2016-9015 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2016-9015 was published on January 11, 2017 and was last updated on April 10, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

CVE-2016-9015: Urllib3 Incorrect Certificate Validation (Low 3.…

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.8%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk51th percentile+0.74%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🐍urllib3

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Versions 1.17 and 1.18 of the Python urllib3 library suffer from a vulnerability that can cause them, in certain configurations, to not correctly validate TLS certificates. This places users of the library with those configurations at risk of man-in-the-middle and information leakage attacks. This vulnerability affects users using versions 1.17 and 1.18 of the urllib3 library, who are using the optional PyOpenSSL support for TLS instead of the regular standard library TLS backend, and who are using OpenSSL 1.1.0 via PyOpenSSL. This is an extremely uncommon configuration, so the security impact of this vulnerability is low.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐍PyPI	`urllib3`	≥ 1.17&&< 1.18.1	1.18.1

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for urllib3. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update urllib3 to 1.18.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-9015 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2016-9015 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to CVE-2016-9015. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Versions 1.17 and 1.18 of the Python urllib3 library suffer from a vulnerability that can cause them, in certain configurations, to not correctly validate TLS certificates. This places users of the library with those configurations at risk of man-in-the-middle and information leakage attacks. This vulnerability affects users using versions 1.17 and 1.18 of the urllib3 library, who are using the optional PyOpenSSL support for TLS instead of the regular standard library TLS backend, and who are using OpenSSL 1.1.0 via PyOpenSSL. This is an extremely uncommon configuration, so the security impact

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2016-9015 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2016-9015 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works

CVE-2016-9015