CVE-2023-45813
MEDIUMCVE-2023-45813 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.6) CWE-1333 vulnerability in torbot. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2023-45813 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity in TorBot
Blast Radius
torbotReal-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
Torbot is an open source tor network intelligence tool. In affected versions the torbot.modules.validators.validate_link function uses the python-validators URL validation regex. This particular regular expression has an exponential complexity which allows an attacker to cause an application crash using a well-crafted argument. An attacker can use a well-crafted URL argument to exploit the vulnerability in the regular expression and cause a Denial of Service on the system. The validators file has been removed in version 4.0.0. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | torbot | all versions | 4.0.0 |
Research 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 torbot. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update torbot to 4.0.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-45813 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-45813 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2023-45813. 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-2023-45813 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2023-45813 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.