Django-Select2 Vulnerable to Widget Instance Secret Cache Key LeakingGHSA-wjrh-hj83-3wh7
HIGHFix: codingjoe/django-select2@e5f41e6GHSA-wjrh-hj83-3wh7 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) CWE-402 vulnerability in django-select2. A fix is available for django-select2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-wjrh-hj83-3wh7.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
django-select2Real-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
Instances of HeavySelect2Mixin subclasses like the ModelSelect2MultipleWidget and ModelSelect2Widget can secret access tokens across requests. This can allow users to access restricted querysets and restricted data.
Patches
The problem has been patched in version 8.4.1 and all following versions.
Workarounds
This vulnerability is limited use cases where instances of widget classes are created during app loading (not during a request).
Example of affected code:
class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
widgets = {"my_select_field": Select2ModelWidget()}
Django allows you to pass just the widget class (not the instance). This can be used to mitigate the session request leak.
Example of affected code:
class MyForm(forms.ModelForm):
class Meta:
widgets = {"my_select_field": Select2ModelWidget}
References
Thanks to @neartik for reporting this issue. I will address it later. I had to delete your issue, to avoid exploitation of this security issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | django-select2 | all versions | 8.4.1pip install --upgrade 'django-select2==8.4.1' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for django-select2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update django-select2 to 8.4.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-wjrh-hj83-3wh7 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Restrict outbound requests from the affected component to an allowlist of hosts, block access to link-local and internal address ranges at the network layer, and require authentication on internal services so a forged request cannot reach them unauthenticated.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-wjrh-hj83-3wh7 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.