CVE-2017-16613 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.8) Improper Authentication vulnerability in swauth. A fix is available for swauth — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OpenStack Swauth object/proxy server writing Auth Token to log file
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2017-16613 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 376,715 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
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 | 1.3.0pip install --upgrade 'swauth==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, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2017-16613 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
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 Security finds CVE-2017-16613 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.