CVE-2023-38699 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.1) CWE-311 vulnerability in mindsdb. A fix is available for mindsdb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
MindsDB 'Call to requests with verify=False disabling SSL certificate checks, security issue.' issue
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-2023-38699.
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
mindsdbReal-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
MindsDB's AI Virtual Database allows developers to connect any AI/ML model to any datasource. Prior to version 23.7.4.0, a call to requests with verify=False disables SSL certificate checks. This rule enforces always verifying SSL certificates for methods in the Requests library. In version 23.7.4.0, certificates are validated by default, which is the desired behavior
Encryption in general is typically critical to the security of many applications. Using TLS can significantly increase security by guaranteeing the identity of the party you are communicating with. This is accomplished by one or both parties presenting trusted certificates during the connection initialization phase of TLS.
It is important to note that modules such as httplib within the Python standard library did not verify certificate chains until it was fixed in 2.7.9 release.
Details
Severity: Critical
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | mindsdb | all versions | 23.7.4.0pip install --upgrade 'mindsdb==23.7.4.0' |
Affected Products
mindsdbmindsdbDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mindsdb, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update mindsdb to 23.7.4.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-38699 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-38699 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.