GHSA-5j53-63w8-8625 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-285 vulnerability in fastapi-users. A fix is available for fastapi-users — see the affected versions and patch details below.
FastAPI Users Vulnerable to 1-click Account Takeover in Apps Using FastAPI SSO
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-5j53-63w8-8625.
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-5j53-63w8-8625 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
fastapi-usersReal-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
Description
The OAuth login state tokens are completely stateless and carry no per-request entropy or any data that could link them to the session that initiated the OAuth flow. generate_state_token() is always called with an empty state_data dict, so the resulting JWT only contains the fixed audience claim plus an expiration timestamp. [1]
state_data: dict[str, str] = {}
state = generate_state_token(state_data, state_secret)
authorization_url = await oauth_client.get_authorization_url(
authorize_redirect_url,
state,
scopes,
)
fastapi_users/router/oauth.py:65-71
On callback, the library merely checks that the JWT verifies under state_secret and is unexpired; there is no attempt to match the state value to the browser that initiated the OAuth request, no correlation cookie, and no server-side cache. [2]
try:
decode_jwt(state, state_secret, [STATE_TOKEN_AUDIENCE])
except jwt.DecodeError:
raise HTTPException(
status_code=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST,
detail=ErrorCode.ACCESS_TOKEN_DECODE_ERROR,
)
except jwt.ExpiredSignatureError:
raise HTTPException(
status_code=status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST,
detail=ErrorCode.ACCESS_TOKEN_ALREADY_EXPIRED,
)
fastapi_users/router/oauth.py:130-141
Any attacker can hit /authorize, capture the server-generated state, finish the upstream OAuth flow with their own provider account, and then trick a victim into loading .../callback?code=<attacker_code>&state=<attacker_state>. Because the state JWT is valid for any client for ~1 hour, the victim’s browser will complete the flow. This leads to login CSRF. Depending on the app’s logic, the login CSRF can lead to an account takeover of the victim account or to the victim user getting logged in to the attacker's account.
Proof of Concept
Let’s think of an app - AwesomeFastAPIApp. Let’s assume that the AwesomeFastAPIApp has internal logic that uses a UserManager different from the default BaseUserManager. With this manager, when an already logged-in user performs a callback request, the newly provided SSO identity gets linked to the already existing user that made the request.
Then, an attacker can get account takeover inside the app by performing the following actions:
1. They start an SSO OAuth flow, but stop it right before making the callback call to AwesomeFastAPIApp;
2. The attacker tricks a logged-in user (via phishing, a drive-by attack, etc.) to perform a GET request with the attacker's state value and grant code to the AwesomeFastAPIApp callback. Because the library doesn’t check whether the state token is linked to the session performing the callback, the callback is processed, the grant code is sent to the provider, and the account linking takes place.
After the GET request is performed, the attacker's SSO account is linked with the victim's AwesomeFastAPIApp account permanently.
Suggested Fix
Make the state a value tied to the session of the user that initiated the OAuth flow, as recommended by the official RFC. [3]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | fastapi-users | all versions | 15.0.2pip install --upgrade 'fastapi-users==15.0.2' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for fastapi-users, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update fastapi-users to 15.0.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5j53-63w8-8625 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-5j53-63w8-8625 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-5j53-63w8-8625. 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-5j53-63w8-8625 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-5j53-63w8-8625 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.