CVE-2023-46128 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in nautobot. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for nautobot — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exposure of hashed user passwords via REST API in Nautobot
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-2023-46128.
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
nautobotReal-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
Impact
In Nautobot 2.0.x, certain REST API endpoints, in combination with the ?depth=<N> query parameter, can expose hashed user passwords as stored in the database to any authenticated user with access to these endpoints.
The passwords are not exposed in plaintext. Nautobot 1.x is not affected by this vulnerability.
Example:
GET /api/users/permissions/?depth=1
HTTP 200 OK
API-Version: 2.0
Allow: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"count": 1,
"next": null,
"previous": null,
"results": [
{
"id": "28ea85e4-5039-4389-94f1-9a3e1c787149",
"object_type": "users.objectpermission",
"display": "Run Job",
"url": "http://localhost:8080/api/users/permissions/28ea85e4-5039-4389-94f1-9a3e1c787149/",
"natural_slug": "run-job_28ea",
"object_types": [
"extras.job"
],
"name": "Run Job",
"description": "",
"enabled": true,
"actions": [
"run",
"view"
],
"constraints": null,
"groups": [
{
"id": 1,
"object_type": "auth.group",
"display": "A Group",
"url": "http://localhost:8080/api/users/groups/1/",
"natural_slug": "a-group_1",
"name": "A Group"
}
],
"users": [
{
"id": "e73288e2-1326-4bfb-8fea-041290dd7473",
"object_type": "users.user",
"display": "admin",
"url": "http://localhost:8080/api/users/users/e73288e2-1326-4bfb-8fea-041290dd7473/",
"natural_slug": "admin_e732",
"password": "pbkdf2_sha256$260000$jQb7hA48HYJ0MLWQgOZiBl$b72+gz6SpZiRpxceRQfT5Zv/aUac0eJ4NdBTZ8ECOow=",
"last_login": "2023-10-18T14:19:08.780857Z",
"is_superuser": true,
"username": "admin",
"first_name": "",
"last_name": "",
"email": "",
"is_staff": true,
"is_active": true,
"date_joined": "2023-10-18T14:18:55.854023Z",
"config_data": {}
}
]
}
]
}
Note the "password" field present in the nested
"users"data.
This information is not exposed during direct access to the /api/users/users/ endpoint, but can be exposed through any endpoint which contains a nested reference to User object(s) when an appropriate ?depth=<N> query parameter is specified. Known impacted endpoints include:
/api/dcim/rack-reservations/?depth=1(or any greaterdepthvalue)/api/extras/job-results/?depth=1(or any greaterdepthvalue)/api/extras/notes/?depth=1(or any greaterdepthvalue)/api/extras/object-changes/?depth=1(or any greaterdepthvalue)/api/extras/scheduled-jobs/?depth=1(or any greaterdepthvalue)/api/users/permissions/?depth=1(or any greaterdepthvalue)
but this is not necessarily an exhaustive list.
Plugin REST API endpoints for any models with a foreign key to the User model may also be impacted by this issue.
The patch identified below mitigates the issue for both Nautobot core REST APIs and plugin REST APIs; no code change in plugins is required to address this issue.
Patches
Refer to https://github.com/nautobot/nautobot/pull/4692 for the patch that resolved this issue.
Workarounds
Upgrading to v2.0.3 or later, or applying the above patch, is the preferred workaround for this issue; while it could also be partially mitigated by updating permissions to deny user access to the above list of impacted REST API endpoints, that is not recommended as other endpoints may also expose this issue until patched.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | nautobot | ≥ 2.0.0&&< 2.0.3 | 2.0.3pip install --upgrade 'nautobot==2.0.3' |
Affected Products
nautobotnetworktocodeResearch 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 nautobot, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update nautobot to 2.0.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-46128 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-46128 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.