CVE-2023-46137 — twisted
MEDIUMCVE-2023-46137 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-444 vulnerability in twisted. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for twisted — see the affected versions and patch details below.
twisted.web has disordered HTTP pipeline response
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.
- 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-2023-46137.
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-2023-46137 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 377,636 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
twistedReal-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
Twisted is an event-based framework for internet applications. Prior to version 23.10.0rc1, when sending multiple HTTP requests in one TCP packet, twisted.web will process the requests asynchronously without guaranteeing the response order. If one of the endpoints is controlled by an attacker, the attacker can delay the response on purpose to manipulate the response of the second request when a victim launched two requests using HTTP pipeline. Version 23.10.0rc1 contains a patch for this issue.
Details
There's an example faulty program:
from twisted.internet import reactor, endpoints
from twisted.web import server
from twisted.web.proxy import ReverseProxyResource
from twisted.web.resource import Resource
class Second(Resource):
isLeaf = True
def render_GET(self, request):
return b'SECOND\n'
class First(Resource):
isLeaf = True
def render_GET(self, request):
def send_response():
request.write(b'FIRST DELAYED\n')
request.finish()
reactor.callLater(0.5, send_response)
return server.NOT_DONE_YET
root = Resource()
root.putChild(b'second', Second())
root.putChild(b'first', First())
endpoint = endpoints.TCP4ServerEndpoint(reactor, 8080)
endpoint.listen(server.Site(root))
reactor.run()
When two requests for /first and /second are sent in the same order, the second request will be responded to first.
echo -en "GET /first HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: a\r\n\r\nGET /second HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: a\r\n\r\n" | nc localhost 8080
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | twisted | all versions | 23.10.0rc1pip install --upgrade 'twisted==23.10.0rc1' |
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 twisted, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update twisted to 23.10.0rc1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-46137 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-2023-46137 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2023-46137. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | python3x-twisted-0:23.10.0-1.el8ap | RHSA-2024:0322 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | automation-controller-0:4.5.5-2.el8ap | RHSA-2024:1640 |
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.1 | python-twisted-0:16.4.1-21.el8ost | RHSA-2024:1516 |
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16.2 | python-twisted-0:16.4.1-21.el8ost | RHSA-2024:1518 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-46137 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2023-46137 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.