CVE-2022-46176 — cargo
MEDIUMCVE-2022-46176 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-347 vulnerability in cargo. A fix is available for cargo — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Cargo did not verify SSH host keys
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-2022-46176.
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-2022-46176 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 377,166 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
cargoReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Cargo is a Rust package manager. The Rust Security Response WG was notified that Cargo did not perform SSH host key verification when cloning indexes and dependencies via SSH. An attacker could exploit this to perform man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. This vulnerability has been assigned CVE-2022-46176. All Rust versions containing Cargo before 1.66.1 are vulnerable. Note that even if you don't explicitly use SSH for alternate registry indexes or crate dependencies, you might be affected by this vulnerability if you have configured git to replace HTTPS connections to GitHub with SSH (through git's [url.<base>.insteadOf][1] setting), as that'd cause you to clone the crates.io index through SSH. Rust 1.66.1 will ensure Cargo checks the SSH host key and abort the connection if the server's public key is not already trusted. We recommend everyone to upgrade as soon as possible.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | cargo | all versions | 0.67.1cargo update -p cargo --precise 0.67.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for cargo, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update cargo to 0.67.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-46176 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-2022-46176 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-46176. 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-2022-46176 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-46176 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.