GHSA-hqvf-45jj-mccq
MEDIUMGHSA-hqvf-45jj-mccq is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.8) CWE-322 vulnerability in awscli. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-hqvf-45jj-mccq is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
AWS CLI: Disabled SSH host key verification in Amazon AWS CLI EMR helper commands
Blast Radius
awscliReal-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
The AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) is a unified tool to manage AWS services from the command line. An issue exists where the EMR SSH helper commands (aws emr ssh, aws emr socks, aws emr put, aws emr get) passed StrictHostKeyChecking=no to the underlying SSH client, disabling host key verification.
Impact
A network-positioned actor could perform a man-in-the-middle action to intercept SSH sessions and file transfers between the client and EMR cluster instances. Successful exploitation requires the actor to have network access on the path between the client machine and the EMR cluster endpoint. This could result in full visibility of commands executed, files transferred, and credentials passed over the SSH session.
Impacted versions: AWS CLI v1 <= 1.45.27, AWS CLI v2 <= 2.35.2
Patches
This issue has been addressed in AWS CLI v1 version 1.45.28 and AWS CLI v2 version 2.35.3. We recommend upgrading to the latest version and ensuring any forked or derivative code is patched to incorporate the new fixes.
Workarounds
There is no workaround. The insecure SSH option was hardcoded and could not be overridden by the user.
References
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, we ask that you contact AWS Security via our vulnerability reporting page or directly via email to [email protected]. Please do not create a public GitHub issue.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Ali Sunbul for collaborating on this issue through the coordinated vulnerability disclosure process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | awscli | all versions | 1.45.28 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for awscli. 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 awscli to 1.45.28 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-hqvf-45jj-mccq 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-hqvf-45jj-mccq 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-hqvf-45jj-mccq. 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-hqvf-45jj-mccq in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-hqvf-45jj-mccq across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.