CVE-2018-7206 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.8) vulnerability in oauthenticator. A fix is available for oauthenticator — see the affected versions and patch details below.
JupyterHub OAuthenticator elevation of privilege
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-2018-7206 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 379,145 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
oauthenticator🐍oauthenticatorReal-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 Project Jupyter JupyterHub OAuthenticator 0.6.x before 0.6.2 and 0.7.x before 0.7.3. When using JupyterHub with GitLab group whitelisting for access control, group membership was not checked correctly, allowing members not in the whitelisted groups to create accounts on the Hub. (Users were not allowed to access other users' accounts, but could create their own accounts on the Hub linked to their GitLab account. GitLab authentication not using gitlab_group_whitelist is unaffected. No other Authenticators are affected.)
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | oauthenticator | ≥ 0.6&&< 0.6.2 | 0.6.2pip install --upgrade 'oauthenticator==0.6.2' |
| 🐍PyPI | oauthenticator | ≥ 0.7&&< 0.7.3 | 0.7.3pip install --upgrade 'oauthenticator==0.7.3' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for oauthenticator, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update oauthenticator to 0.6.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2018-7206 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-2018-7206 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2018-7206. 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-2018-7206 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2018-7206 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.