CVE-2018-14636 — neutron
MEDIUMCVE-2018-14636 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-300 vulnerability in neutron. A fix is available for neutron — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Openstack Neutron vulnerable to eavesdropping on private traffic
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-2018-14636 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 377,636 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
neutron🐍neutron🐍neutronReal-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
Live-migrated instances are briefly able to inspect traffic for other instances on the same hypervisor. This brief window could be extended indefinitely if the instance's port is set administratively down prior to live-migration and kept down after the migration is complete. This is possible due to the Open vSwitch integration bridge being connected to the instance during migration. When connected to the integration bridge, all traffic for instances using the same Open vSwitch instance would potentially be visible to the migrated guest, as the required Open vSwitch VLAN filters are only applied post-migration. Versions of openstack-neutron before 13.0.0.0b2, 12.0.3, 11.0.5 are vulnerable.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | neutron | ≥ 13.0.0.0b1&&< 13.0.0.0b2 | 13.0.0.0b2pip install --upgrade 'neutron==13.0.0.0b2' |
| 🐍PyPI | neutron | ≥ 12.0.0&&< 12.0.3 | 12.0.3pip install --upgrade 'neutron==12.0.3' |
| 🐍PyPI | neutron | ≥ 11.0.0&&< 11.0.5 | 11.0.5pip install --upgrade 'neutron==11.0.5' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for neutron, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update neutron to 13.0.0.0b2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-14636 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-2018-14636 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2018-14636. 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-2018-14636 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2018-14636 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.