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GHSA-r3hx-x5rh-p9vv (django-haystack): affected version range is unparseable ("eval()"), so the advisory matches nothing

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#8,843 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
django, elasticsearch, python
Domain
security

Research direction

Start with GHSA-r3hx-x5rh-p9vv and django-haystack#2066, then inspect the referenced sink at haystack/backends/elasticsearch_backend.py:865 and the project's released versions. Confirm the earliest affected version with the upstream maintainers before correcting the advisory's affected and patched metadata; done means the range parses and automated consumers can match affected releases.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Advisory

GHSA-r3hx-x5rh-p9vvRemote Code Execution via eval() in Elasticsearch Result Deserialization, django-haystack (pip), published 2026-06-04, Moderate.

Problem

The advisory's version metadata is not a version range:

  • Affected versions: eval()
  • Patched versions: None

eval() appears to be a paste slip from the advisory body (the vulnerable sink is eval(value) at haystack/backends/elasticsearch_backend.py:865).

Impact of the metadata bug

Because the affected range is not a parseable constraint, this advisory cannot match any installed version. In practice that means:

  • Dependabot will not raise an alert for any django-haystack user
  • pip-audit, OSV-Scanner and other OSV consumers will not flag it
  • The advisory is published and visible to humans, but inert to every automated consumer

So a Moderate-severity RCE advisory exists while affected users receive no signal.

Suggested correction

Replace the affected range with a real constraint. django-haystack's latest release is 3.3.0 and the sink is still present on master, so the affected range appears to be all released versions up to and including the current one — e.g. <= 3.3.0, or an ecosystem-specific range once maintainers confirm the earliest affected version. Patched versions should stay empty/none until a fix ships, which is accurate today.

I've also opened django-haystack/django-haystack#2066 asking the maintainers to correct this at source and to consider requesting a CVE, since the advisory currently has none.

Disclosure

I'm the reporter of the underlying vulnerability. Raising this here only because the advisory is already public — nothing undisclosed is included above.

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