PyO3 has a risk of use-after-free in `borrowed` reads from Python weak referencesGHSA-6jgw-rgmm-7cv6
MEDIUMFix: PyO3/pyo3#4590GHSA-6jgw-rgmm-7cv6 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Use After Free vulnerability in pyo3. A fix is available for pyo3 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-6jgw-rgmm-7cv6.
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
pyo3Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
The family of functions to read "borrowed" values from Python weak references were fundamentally unsound, because the weak reference does itself not have ownership of the value. At any point the last strong reference could be cleared and the borrowed value would become dangling.
In PyO3 0.22.4 these functions have all been deprecated and patched to leak a strong reference as a mitigation. PyO3 0.23 will remove these functions entirely.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | pyo3 | ≥ 0.22.0&&< 0.22.4 | 0.22.4cargo update -p pyo3 --precise 0.22.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for pyo3, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update pyo3 to 0.22.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6jgw-rgmm-7cv6 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
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.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-6jgw-rgmm-7cv6 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-6jgw-rgmm-7cv6 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.