GHSA-pw27-w7w4-9qc7 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.4) Cross-site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability in django. A fix is available for django — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Django XSS Vulnerability
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-pw27-w7w4-9qc7 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
django🐍djangoReal-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
The utils.http.is_safe_url function in Django before 1.8.10 and 1.9.x before 1.9.3 allows remote attackers to redirect users to arbitrary web sites and conduct phishing attacks or possibly conduct cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks via a URL containing basic authentication, as demonstrated by http://mysite.example.com\@attacker.com.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | django | all versions | 1.8.10pip install --upgrade 'django==1.8.10' |
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 1.9a1&&< 1.9.3 | 1.9.3pip install --upgrade 'django==1.9.3' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for django, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update django to 1.8.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-pw27-w7w4-9qc7 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-pw27-w7w4-9qc7 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-pw27-w7w4-9qc7. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5.0 (Icehouse) for RHEL 6 | python-django-0:1.6.11-5.el6ost | RHSA-2016:0502 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 5.0 (Icehouse) for RHEL 7 | python-django-0:1.6.11-5.el7ost | RHSA-2016:0506 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 6.0 (Juno) for RHEL 7 | python-django-0:1.6.11-5.el7ost | RHSA-2016:0505 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7.0 (Kilo) for RHEL 7 | python-django-0:1.8.11-1.el7ost | RHSA-2016:0504 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform 7.0 Operational Tools for RHEL 7 | python-django-0:1.6.11-5.el7ost | RHSA-2016:0503 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-pw27-w7w4-9qc7 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-pw27-w7w4-9qc7 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.