CVE-2024-41942
HIGHJupyterHub has a privilege escalation vulnerability with the `admin:users` scope
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.
Blast Radius
jupyterhub🐍jupyterhubReal-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
JupyterHub is software that allows one to create a multi-user server for Jupyter notebooks. Prior to versions 4.1.6 and 5.1.0, if a user is granted the admin:users scope, they may escalate their own privileges by making themselves a full admin user. The impact is relatively small in that admin:users is already an extremely privileged scope only granted to trusted users.
In effect, admin:users is equivalent to admin=True, which is not intended. Note that the change here only prevents escalation to the built-in JupyterHub admin role that has unrestricted permissions. It does not prevent users with e.g. groups permissions from granting themselves or other users permissions via group membership, which is intentional. Versions 4.1.6 and 5.1.0 fix this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | jupyterhub | all versions | 4.1.6 |
| 🐍PyPI | jupyterhub | ≥ 5.0.0&&< 5.1.0 | 5.1.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for jupyterhub. 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 jupyterhub to 4.1.6 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-41942 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-2024-41942 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-2024-41942. 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-2024-41942 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2024-41942 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.