CVE-2023-46121 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5) CWE-444 vulnerability in yt-dlp. A fix is available for yt-dlp — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Generic Extractor MITM Vulnerability in yt-dlp
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-2023-46121.
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-2023-46121 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 377,166 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
yt-dlpReal-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
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | yt-dlp | ≥ 2022.10.04&&< 2023.11.14 | 2023.11.14pip install --upgrade 'yt-dlp==2023.11.14' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for yt-dlp, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2023-46121 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
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
Is CVE-2023-46121 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-46121 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.