GHSA-9w2p-rh8c-v9g5 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: pip — Local Privilege Escalation in Windows
PyInstaller bundles a Python application and all its dependencies into a single package. A PyInstaller built application, elevated as a privileged process, may be tricked by an unprivileged attacker into deleting files the unprivileged user does not otherwise have access to. A user is affected if **all** the following are satisfied: 1. The user runs an application containing either `matplotlib` or `win32com`. 2. The application is ran as administrator (or at least a user with higher privileges than the attacker). 3. The user's temporary directory is not locked to that specific user (most likely due to `TMP`/`TEMP` environment variables pointing to an unprotected, arbitrary, non default location). Either: A. The attacker is able to very carefully time the replacement of a temporary file with a symlink. This switch must occur exactly between `shutil.rmtree()`'s builtin symlink check and the deletion itself B: The application was built with Python 3.7.x or earlier which has no protection against Directory Junctions links. The vulnerability has been addressed in PR #7827 which corresponds to `pyinstaller >= 5.13.1`. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.
Conclusion & alert: CVE-2023-49797 is rated Moderate Risk (43.9/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.32%). Mandatory action: Review affected assets and schedule remediation.
Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.
EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).
| # | Date | Old EPSS score | New EPSS score | Delta (New - Old) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-06-15 | 0.05% | 0.32% | +0.28% |
| 2 | 2026-01-11 | 0.05% | 0.05% | -0.01% |
| 3 | 2025-03-17 | — | 0.05% | — |
Full EPSS history (4 records total)
CVSS metrics for this CVE.
| Base score | Version | Severity | Vector | Exploitability | Impact | Score source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.8 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
2.0 | 6.0 | [email protected] |
| 7.8 | 3.1 | HIGH |
|
1.8 | 5.9 | [email protected] |
GHSA-9w2p-rh8c-v9g5 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: pip — Local Privilege Escalation in Windows
| Vendor | Product | Version | Raw CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
| pyinstaller | pyinstaller | < 5.13.1 | cpe:2.3:a:pyinstaller:pyinstaller:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |