How severe is CVE-2023-46121?

CVE-2023-46121 has a CVSS score of 5/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2023-46121?

CVE-2023-46121 affects the following packages: yt-dlp (PyPI). Ecosystems affected: PyPI.

How do I fix CVE-2023-46121?

Update yt-dlp to 2023.11.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-46121 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2023-46121 in my PyPI dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for yt-dlp. 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.

How do I mitigate CVE-2023-46121 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against CVE-2023-46121?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-46121 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2023-46121 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2023-46121 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2023-46121?

CVE-2023-46121 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.3%, placing it in the 23th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2023-46121?

CVE-2023-46121 is classified as CWE-444 (CWE-444). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2023-46121 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2023-46121 was published on November 14, 2023 and was last updated on April 2, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐍 PyPI

CVE-2023-46121

MEDIUM

Generic Extractor MITM Vulnerability in yt-dlp

Also known asGHSA-3ch3-jhc6-5r8x

Published

Nov 14, 2023

Updated

Apr 2, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.3%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk23th percentile+0.22%

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.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🐍yt-dlp

Real-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

yt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes. The Generic Extractor in yt-dlp is vulnerable to an attacker setting an arbitrary proxy for a request to an arbitrary url, allowing the attacker to MITM the request made from yt-dlp's HTTP session. This could lead to cookie exfiltration in some cases. Version 2023.11.14 removed the ability to smuggle http_headers to the Generic extractor, as well as other extractors that use the same pattern. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should disable the Ggneric extractor (or only pass trusted sites with trusted content) and ake caution when using --no-check-certificate.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐍PyPI	`yt-dlp`	≥ 2022.10.04&&< 2023.11.14	2023.11.14

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for yt-dlp. 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 yt-dlp to 2023.11.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-46121 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-2023-46121 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-2023-46121. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

yt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes. The Generic Extractor in yt-dlp is vulnerable to an attacker setting an arbitrary proxy for a request to an arbitrary url, allowing the attacker to MITM the request made from yt-dlp's HTTP session. This could lead to cookie exfiltration in some cases. Version 2023.11.14 removed the ability to smuggle `http_headers` to the Generic extractor, as well as other extractors that use the same pattern. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade should disable the Ggneric extractor (or only pass trusted sites with trusted conten

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2023-46121 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2023-46121 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

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