CVE-2024-45230 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-120 vulnerability in django. EPSS puts its 30-day exploitation probability at 25.8% (98th percentile). A fix is available for django — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Django vulnerable to denial-of-service attack via the urlize() and urlizetrunc() template filters
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-2024-45230.
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-2024-45230 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 10–50% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
django🐍django🐍djangoReal-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
An issue was discovered in Django 5.1 before 5.1.1, 5.0 before 5.0.9, and 4.2 before 4.2.16. The urlize() and urlizetrunc() template filters are subject to a potential denial-of-service attack via very large inputs with a specific sequence of characters.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 5.1&&< 5.1.1 | 5.1.1pip install --upgrade 'django==5.1.1' |
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 5.0&&< 5.0.9 | 5.0.9pip install --upgrade 'django==5.0.9' |
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 4.2&&< 4.2.16 | 4.2.16pip install --upgrade 'django==4.2.16' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for django, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update django to 5.1.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-45230 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-2024-45230 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-45230. 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.
CVE-2024-45230 is classified as a moderate severity vulnerability because, while it presents a potential denial-of-service (DoS) risk, it does not directly expose the application to data breaches or arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability arises from inefficient handling of very large inputs with specific…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8 | automation-controller-0:4.6.2-1.el8ap | RHSA-2024:8534 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-45230 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-45230 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.