pip incorrectly processes doubly-encoded URLs from a package index, allowing an attacker to specify a destination path that bypasses the usual safety checks and results in a file being installed to an arbitrary location on disk. This can overwrite configuration files, system libraries, or other critical resources, compromising confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the affected system.

Python Packaging Authority’s pip is affected. No specific product versions were listed in the available data, so any release before the vulnerability was fixed is potentially vulnerable.

The CVSS score is 5.6, which is considered moderate. The EPSS score of less than 1 % indicates a low likelihood of exploitation at the time of this analysis. The vulnerability is not listed in CISA’s KEV catalog. Exploitation requires an attacker to host a malicious package index and the victim to run pip download with the --only-binary option, so the threat is limited to users who explicitly download packages from untrusted or unknown indexes.