CVE-2023-37480 is a low-severity (CVSS 2.7) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in ethyca-fides. A fix is available for ethyca-fides — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Fides Webserver Vulnerable to Zip Bomb File Uploads
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-2023-37480.
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-2023-37480 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 377,238 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
ethyca-fidesReal-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
Fides is an open-source privacy engineering platform for managing data privacy requests and privacy regulations. The Fides webserver is vulnerable to a type of Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Attackers can exploit a weakness in the connector template upload feature to upload a malicious zip bomb file, resulting in resource exhaustion and service unavailability for all users of the Fides webserver. This vulnerability affects Fides versions 2.11.0 through 2.15.1. Exploitation is limited to users with elevated privileges with the CONNECTOR_TEMPLATE_REGISTER scope, which includes root users and users with the owner role. The vulnerability has been patched in Fides version 2.16.0. Users are advised to upgrade to this version or later to secure their systems against this threat. There is no known workaround to remediate this vulnerability without upgrading. If an attack occurs, the impact can be mitigated by manually or automatically restarting the affected container.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | ethyca-fides | ≥ 2.11.0&&< 2.16.0 | 2.16.0pip install --upgrade 'ethyca-fides==2.16.0' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ethyca-fides, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ethyca-fides to 2.16.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-37480 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-2023-37480 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-37480. 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-2023-37480 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-37480 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.