CVE-2019-17514
library/glob.html in the Python 2 and 3 documentation before 2016 has potentially misleading information about whether sorting occurs, as demonstrated by irreproducible cancer-research results.
Does this matter?
High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (4.67%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.
Description
library/glob.html in the Python 2 and 3 documentation before 2016 has potentially misleading information about whether sorting occurs, as demonstrated by irreproducible cancer-research results. NOTE: the effects of this documentation cross application domains, and thus it is likely that security-relevant code elsewhere is affected. This issue is not a Python implementation bug, and there are no reports that NMR researchers were specifically relying on library/glob.html. In other words, because the older documentation stated "finds all the pathnames matching a specified pattern according to the rules used by the Unix shell," one might have incorrectly inferred that the sorting that occurs in a Unix shell also occurred for glob.glob. There is a workaround in newer versions of Willoughby nmr-data_compilation-p2.py and nmr-data_compilation-p3.py, which call sort() directly.
- CVSS 3.1
- 7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
- EPSS
- 4.67% probability · 91th percentile
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Weakness
- CWE-682
- Affected
- python/python
- Source
- cve@mitre.org
References
- https://bugs.python.org/issue33275Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory
- https://github.com/bminor/bash/blob/ac50fbac377e32b98d2de396f016ea81e8ee9961/pathexp.c#L380Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/bminor/bash/blob/ac50fbac377e32b98d2de396f016ea81e8ee9961/pathexp.c#L405Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b03216Third Party Advisory
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b03216/suppl_file/ol9b03216_si_002.zipThird Party Advisory
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20191107-0005/
- https://twitter.com/LucasCMoore/status/1181615421922824192Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory
- https://twitter.com/chris_bloke/status/1181997278136958976Third Party Advisory
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4428-1/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150822013622/https://docs.python.org/3/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150906020027/https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160309211341/https://docs.python.org/3/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160526201356/https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjwda/a-code-glitch-may-have-caused-errors-in-more-than-100-published-studiesPress/Media Coverage, Third Party Advisory
- https://bugs.python.org/issue33275Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory
- https://github.com/bminor/bash/blob/ac50fbac377e32b98d2de396f016ea81e8ee9961/pathexp.c#L380Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://github.com/bminor/bash/blob/ac50fbac377e32b98d2de396f016ea81e8ee9961/pathexp.c#L405Exploit, Third Party Advisory
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b03216Third Party Advisory
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acs.orglett.9b03216/suppl_file/ol9b03216_si_002.zipThird Party Advisory
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20191107-0005/
- https://twitter.com/LucasCMoore/status/1181615421922824192Issue Tracking, Third Party Advisory
- https://twitter.com/chris_bloke/status/1181997278136958976Third Party Advisory
- https://usn.ubuntu.com/4428-1/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150822013622/https://docs.python.org/3/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://web.archive.org/web/20150906020027/https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160309211341/https://docs.python.org/3/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://web.archive.org/web/20160526201356/https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/glob.htmlVendor Advisory
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjwda/a-code-glitch-may-have-caused-errors-in-more-than-100-published-studiesPress/Media Coverage, Third Party Advisory
Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.