CVE-2023-23608 — spotipy
NONECVE-2023-23608 is a none-severity (CVSS 0) Path Traversal vulnerability in spotipy. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for spotipy — see the affected versions and patch details below.
spotipy Path traversal vulnerability that may lead to type confusion in URI handling code
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-23608.
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
spotipyReal-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
Summary
If a malicious URI is passed to the library, the library can be tricked into performing an operation on a different API endpoint than intended.
Details
The code Spotipy uses to parse URIs and URLs accepts user data too liberally which allows a malicious user to insert arbitrary characters into the path that is used for API requests. Because it is possible to include .., an attacker can redirect for example a track lookup via spotifyApi.track() to an arbitrary API endpoint like playlists, but this is possible for other endpoints as well.
Before the security advisory feature was enabled on GitHub, I was already in contact with Stéphane Bruckert via e-mail, and he asked me to look into a potential fix.
My recommendation is to perform stricter parsing of URLs and URIs, which I implemented in the patch included at the end of the report. If you prefer, I can also invite you to a private fork of the repository.
Impact
The impact of this vulnerability depends heavily on what operations a client application performs when it handles a URI from a user and how it uses the responses it receives from the API.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | spotipy | all versions | 2.22.1pip install --upgrade 'spotipy==2.22.1' |
Affected Products
spotipyspotipy_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 spotipy, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update spotipy to 2.22.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-23608 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-23608 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.