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Fencer Intel
high 7.3

CVE-2022-36070 json

Poetry's Untrusted Search Path can lead to Local Code Execution on Windows

published 2022-09-07 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-j4j9-7hg9-97g6 , PYSEC-2022-43179 , EUVD-2022-7111

cvss
7.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 30%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Poetry is a dependency manager for Python. To handle dependencies that come from a Git repository, Poetry executes various commands, e.g. `git config`. These commands are being executed using the executable’s name and not its absolute path. This can lead to the execution of untrusted code due to the way Windows resolves executable names to paths. Unlike Linux-based operating systems, Windows searches for the executable in the current directory first and looks in the paths that are defined in the `PATH` environment variable afterward. This vulnerability can lead to Arbitrary Code Execution, which would lead to the takeover of the system. If a developer is exploited, the attacker could steal credentials or persist their access. If the exploit happens on a server, the attackers could use their access to attack other internal systems. Since this vulnerability requires a fair amount of user interaction, it is not as dangerous as a remotely exploitable one. However, it still puts developers at risk when dealing with untrusted files in a way they think is safe. The victim could also not protect themself by vetting any Git or Poetry config files that might be present in the directory, because the behavior is undocumented. Versions 1.1.9 and 1.2.0b1 contain patches for this issue.

Patch / fix

  • pypi poetry 1.1.9
  • python-poetry poetry 1.1.9

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2022-36070 updated cvss 7.3

python-poetry: Untrusted Search Path can lead to Local Code Execution on Windows

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
18 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.36% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 30% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD 3.1 7.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
GitHub 3.1 7.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
OSV 3.1 7.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
pypi poetry
<1.1.9
1.1.9

Affected products

  • python-poetry poetry

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.