CVE-2022-29238 — notebook
MEDIUMCVE-2022-29238 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.3) CWE-425 vulnerability in notebook. A fix is available for notebook — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Forced Browsing in Jupyter Notebook
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-29238.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
notebookReal-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
Impact
What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted?
Authenticated requests to the notebook server with ContentsManager.allow_hidden = False only prevented listing the contents of hidden directories, not accessing individual hidden files or files in hidden directories (i.e. hidden files were 'hidden' but not 'inaccessible'). This could lead to notebook configurations allowing authenticated access to files that may reasonably be expected to be disallowed.
Because fully authenticated requests are required, this is of relatively low impact. But if a server's root directory contains sensitive files whose only protection from the server is being hidden (e.g. ~/.ssh while serving $HOME), then any authenticated requests could access files if their names are guessable. Such contexts also necessarily have full access to the server and therefore execution permissions, which also generally grants access to all the same files. So this does not generally result in any privilege escalation or increase in information access, only an additional, unintended means by which the files could be accessed.
Patches
Has the problem been patched? What versions should users upgrade to?
notebook 6.4.12
Workarounds
Is there a way for users to fix or remediate the vulnerability without upgrading?
- Do not run the notebook server in a directory with hidden files, use subdirectories
- Use a custom ContentsManager with additional checks for
self.is_hidden(path)prior to completing actions
References
Are there any links users can visit to find out more?
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- Open an issue in example link to repo
- Email us at example email address
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | notebook | all versions | 6.4.12pip install --upgrade 'notebook==6.4.12' |
Affected Products
notebookjupyterDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for notebook, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update notebook to 6.4.12 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-29238 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Close the privilege gap rather than the entry point: audit which accounts, roles and service identities can reach the affected operation, drop the component to the least privilege it actually needs, and review file and directory permissions created by earlier installs — a default left in place is what makes this reachable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-29238 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.