CVE-2022-44900 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) Path Traversal vulnerability in py7zr. 2 public exploit or proof-of-concept references are indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for py7zr — see the affected versions and patch details below.
py7zr directory traversal vulnerability
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2022-44900.
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
py7zrReal-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
A directory traversal vulnerability in the SevenZipFile.extractall() function of the python library py7zr v0.20.0 and earlier allows attackers to write arbitrary files via extracting a crafted 7z file.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | py7zr | all versions | 0.20.1pip install --upgrade 'py7zr==0.20.1' |
Affected Products
py7zrpy7zr_projectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for py7zr, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update py7zr to 0.20.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-44900 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Resolve every user-supplied path to its canonical form and reject anything that escapes the intended directory, and run the component under an account that has no read or write access outside the directory it legitimately serves.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-44900 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.