GHSA-p44q-vqpr-4xmg is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Improper Authentication vulnerability in flask-httpauth. A fix is available for flask-httpauth — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Flask-HTTPAuth invokes token verification callback when missing or empty token was given by client
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-p44q-vqpr-4xmg 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 376,715 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
flask-httpauthReal-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
In a situation where the client makes a request to a token protected resource without passing a token, or passing an empty token, Flask-HTTPAuth would invoke the application's token verification callback function with the token argument set to an empty string. If the application had any users in its database with an empty string set as their token, then it could potentially authenticate the client request against any of those users.
Notes
- This issue applies only to token authentication
- This issue applies only when the application verifies tokens by searching for them in a user database.
- This issue applies only if the application stores empty strings as user tokens when the user does not have an assigned token. It does not apply if the application sets those tokens to
NULLinstead. - Tokens that are verified through cryptographic means (such as JWTs) are not affected by this issue.
- Basic and Digest authentication are not affected by this issue.
Remediation
To protect against this issue, developers should make sure that no user in the user database has their token set to an empty string. If there are such users, change the value of those tokens to NULL instead.
Alternatively, developers can upgrade their projects to Flask-HTTPAuth>=4.8.1, which fixes this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | flask-httpauth | all versions | 4.8.1pip install --upgrade 'flask-httpauth==4.8.1' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for flask-httpauth, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update flask-httpauth to 4.8.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-p44q-vqpr-4xmg 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-p44q-vqpr-4xmg can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-p44q-vqpr-4xmg. 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-p44q-vqpr-4xmg in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-p44q-vqpr-4xmg across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.