Symlink Attack Affecting pip package, versions [0,25.2)
Threat Intelligence
The probability is the direct output of the EPSS model, and conveys an overall sense of the threat of exploitation in the wild. The percentile measures the EPSS probability relative to all known EPSS scores. Note: This data is updated daily, relying on the latest available EPSS model version. Check out the EPSS documentation for more details.
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-PYTHON-PIP-13045331
- published25 Sept 2025
- disclosed24 Sept 2025
- creditUnknown
Introduced: 24 Sep 2025
CVE-2025-8869 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
Upgrade pip to version 25.2 or higher.
Overview
Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Symlink Attack via _untar_without_filter when used with Python versions that do not implement PEP 706 (<3.9.17, <3.10.12, <3.11.4, or <3.12). An attacker can write files outside the target directory by enticing the user to install a tar archive containing malicious symbolic links that are not properly validated to ensure they point within the intended extraction directory.
Note: This is only exploitable through the fallback tar extraction logic used with non-PEP 706 compliant Python versions; when using a Python version that implements PEP 706, pip doesn't use the vulnerable fallback code.
Workaround
This vulnerability can be mitigated by upgrading to a Python version that implements PEP 706, e.g., Python >=3.9.17, >=3.10.12, >=3.11.4, or >=3.12, or manually inspecting source distributions before installation.