---
id: CVE-2025-47273
aliases:
  - GHSA-5rjg-fvgr-3xxf
  - BIT-setuptools-2025-47273
  - PYSEC-2025-49
title: >-
  setuptools has a path traversal vulnerability in PackageIndex.download that
  leads to Arbitrary File Write
summary: >-
  setuptools has a path traversal vulnerability in PackageIndex.download that
  leads to Arbitrary File Write
severity: high
vendor: setuptools
product: setuptools
ecosystem: pip
affected:
  - setuptools < 78.1.1
patched:
  - setuptools 78.1.1
published: '2025-05-19'
updated: '2026-09-10'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-10T03:50:24.253527717Z'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-5rjg-fvgr-3xxf'
references:
  - url: 'https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/security/advisories/GHSA-5rjg-fvgr-3xxf'
  - url: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-47273'
  - url: 'https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/4946'
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/commit/250a6d17978f9f6ac3ac887091f2d32886fbbb0b
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/setuptools/PYSEC-2025-49.yaml
  - url: 'https://github.com/pypa/setuptools'
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/blob/6ead555c5fb29bc57fe6105b1bffc163f56fd558/setuptools/package_index.py#L810C1-L825C88
  - url: 'https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2025/05/msg00035.html'
tags:
  - osv
  - pip
  - exploit-available
epss: 0.01539
epssPercentile: 0.73796
exploits:
  github: 2
  githubRepos:
    - 'https://github.com/AliElKhatteb/CVE-2025-47273-POC'
    - 'https://github.com/ahmedreda38/CVE-2025-47273-PoC'
  checkedAt: '2026-09-25T08:20:45.822Z'
exploitAvailable: true
ingestedAt: '2026-09-12T03:13:01.661Z'
---

## Overview

### Summary 
A path traversal vulnerability in `PackageIndex` was fixed in setuptools version 78.1.1

### Details
```
    def _download_url(self, url, tmpdir):
        # Determine download filename
        #
        name, _fragment = egg_info_for_url(url)
        if name:
            while '..' in name:
                name = name.replace('..', '.').replace('\\', '_')
        else:
            name = "__downloaded__"  # default if URL has no path contents

        if name.endswith('.[egg.zip](http://egg.zip/)'):
            name = name[:-4]  # strip the extra .zip before download

 -->       filename = os.path.join(tmpdir, name)
```

Here: https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/blob/6ead555c5fb29bc57fe6105b1bffc163f56fd558/setuptools/package_index.py#L810C1-L825C88

`os.path.join()` discards the first argument `tmpdir` if the second begins with a slash or drive letter.
`name` is derived from a URL without sufficient sanitization. While there is some attempt to sanitize by replacing instances of '..' with '.', it is insufficient.

### Risk Assessment
As easy_install and package_index are deprecated, the exploitation surface is reduced.
However, it seems this could be exploited in a similar fashion like https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-r9hx-vwmv-q579, and as described by POC 4 in https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-cx63-2mw6-8hw5 report: via malicious URLs present on the pages of a package index.

### Impact
An attacker would be allowed to write files to arbitrary locations on the filesystem with the permissions of the process running the Python code, which could escalate to RCE depending on the context.

### References
https://huntr.com/bounties/d6362117-ad57-4e83-951f-b8141c6e7ca5
https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/4946

## Affected packages

- `setuptools < 78.1.1`

## Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

- `setuptools 78.1.1`