Python vulnerability

What happened

Python's elementtree C accelerator failed to initialise Expat's hash salt during initialization. This could make it easy to conduct denial of service attacks against Expat by constructing an XML document that would cause pathological hash collisions in Expat's internal data structures, consuming large amounts CPU and RAM. The vulnerability exists in Python versions 3.7.0, 3.6.0 through 3.6.6, 3.5.0 through 3.5.6, 3.4.0 through 3.4.9, 2.7.0 through 2.7.15.

Affected versions

Python: 3.8, 3.7, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 2.7 Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.

Detection & mitigation

• Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
• Review affected product exposure and access logs.