GHSA-vm8q-m57g-pff3 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-1333 vulnerability in django. A fix is available for django — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Regular expression denial-of-service in Django
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-vm8q-m57g-pff3.
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-vm8q-m57g-pff3 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 379,145 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🐍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
In Django 3.2 before 3.2.25, 4.2 before 4.2.11, and 5.0 before 5.0.3, the django.utils.text.Truncator.words() method (with html=True) and the truncatewords_html template filter are subject to a potential regular expression denial-of-service attack via a crafted string. NOTE: this issue exists because of an incomplete fix for CVE-2019-14232 and CVE-2023-43665.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 3.2&&< 3.2.25 | 3.2.25pip install --upgrade 'django==3.2.25' |
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 4.2&&< 4.2.11 | 4.2.11pip install --upgrade 'django==4.2.11' |
| 🐍PyPI | django | ≥ 5.0&&< 5.0.3 | 5.0.3pip install --upgrade 'django==5.0.3' |
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 3.2.25 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-vm8q-m57g-pff3 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-vm8q-m57g-pff3 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-vm8q-m57g-pff3. 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 Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | python3x-django-0:4.2.11-1.el8ap | RHSA-2024:1640 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | automation-controller-0:4.5.7-1.el8ap | RHSA-2024:3781 |
| Red Hat OpenStack Platform 17.1 for RHEL 9 | python-django-0:2.2.24-9.el9ost | RHSA-2025:4187 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.15 for RHEL 8 | python-django-0:4.2.14-1.el8pc | RHSA-2024:5662 |
| RHUI 4 for RHEL 8 | python-django-0:4.2.11-1.el8ui | RHSA-2024:1878 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-vm8q-m57g-pff3 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-vm8q-m57g-pff3 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.