CVE-2023-37920 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-345 vulnerability in certifi. A fix is available for certifi — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Certifi's removal of e-Tugra root certificate
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.
- 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-2023-37920.
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-2023-37920 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 378,567 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
certifiReal-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
Certifi is a curated collection of Root Certificates for validating the trustworthiness of SSL certificates while verifying the identity of TLS hosts. Certifi prior to version 2023.07.22 recognizes "e-Tugra" root certificates. e-Tugra's root certificates were subject to an investigation prompted by reporting of security issues in their systems. Certifi 2023.07.22 removes root certificates from "e-Tugra" from the root store.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | certifi | ≥ 2015.4.28&&< 2023.7.22 | 2023.7.22pip install --upgrade 'certifi==2023.7.22' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for certifi, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update certifi to 2023.7.22 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-37920 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-2023-37920 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-37920. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
While eTurgra certificates being marked as untrusted by Mozilla is significant from a trust and security standpoint, this is still considered a low severity issue. The certificates were removed from Mozilla's root store in July 2023, indicating a proactive response to security concerns. Additionally, Red Hat does not…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | fence-agents-0:4.2.1-121.el8_9.2 | RHSA-2024:0133 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | ca-certificates-0:2024.2.69_v8.0.303-80.0.el8_10 | RHBA-2024:5736 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 Update Services for SAP Solutions | fence-agents-0:4.2.1-30.el8_1.10 | RHSA-2023:6812 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Advanced Update Support | fence-agents-0:4.2.1-41.el8_2.12 | RHSA-2023:7435 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support | fence-agents-0:4.2.1-65.el8_4.13 | RHSA-2023:7523 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support | fence-agents-0:4.2.1-89.el8_6.10 | RHSA-2023:7407 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.8 Extended Update Support | fence-agents-0:4.2.1-112.el8_8.2 | RHSA-2023:7528 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | fence-agents-0:4.10.0-55.el9_3.2 | RHSA-2023:7753 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-37920 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-37920 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.