GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc
HIGHOWSLib vulnerable to XML External Entity (XXE) Injection
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
owslibReal-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
Impact
OWSLib's XML parser (which supports both lxml and xml.etree) does not disable entity resolution for lxml, and could lead to arbitrary file reads from an attacker-controlled XML payload. This affects all XML parsing in the codebase.
Patches
- Use only lxml for XML handling, adding
resolve_entities=Falsetolxml's parser: https://github.com/geopython/OWSLib/pull/863
Workarounds
patch_well_known_namespaces(etree)
etree.set_default_parser(
parser=etree.XMLParser(resolve_entities=False)
)
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | owslib | all versions | 0.28.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for owslib. 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 owslib to 0.28.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc 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 GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc 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 GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc. 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-8h9c-r582-mggc in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-8h9c-r582-mggc across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.