CVE-2017-16613
CRITICALCVE-2017-16613 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Improper Authentication vulnerability in swauth. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2017-16613 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
OpenStack Swauth object/proxy server writing Auth Token to log file
Blast Radius
swauthReal-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
An issue was discovered in middleware.py in OpenStack Swauth through 1.2.0 when used with OpenStack Swift through 2.15.1. The Swift object store and proxy server are saving (unhashed) tokens retrieved from the Swauth middleware authentication mechanism to a log file as part of a GET URI. This allows attackers to bypass authentication by inserting a token into an X-Auth-Token header of a new request. NOTE: github.com/openstack/swauth URLs do not mean that Swauth is maintained by an official OpenStack project team.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | swauth | all versions | 1.3.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for swauth. 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 swauth to 1.3.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-16613 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-2017-16613 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-2017-16613. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2017-16613 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2017-16613 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.