CVE-2017-16615 — An exploitable vulnerability exists in the YAML parsing functionality in the par

An exploitable vulnerability exists in the YAML parsing functionality in the parse_yaml_query method in parser.py in MLAlchemy before 0.2.2. When processing YAML-Based queries for data, a YAML parser can execute arbitrary Python commands resulting in command execution because loa

01What is this vulnerability?

An exploitable vulnerability exists in the YAML parsing functionality in the parse_yaml_query method in parser.py in MLAlchemy before 0.2.2. When processing YAML-Based queries for data, a YAML parser can execute arbitrary Python commands resulting in command execution because load is used where safe_load should have been used. An attacker can insert Python into loaded YAML to trigger this…

02Affected products

No structured affected-product list available — see references below for vendor advisories.

03Active exploitation status

Not currently listed on the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. EPSS is the best forward-looking signal — see the EPSS row above.

04Recommended remediation

• Patch to a fixed version listed in the vendor advisory (see references below).
• Mitigate with WAF rules, network egress filters, or feature flags where the patch is not yet available.
• Hunt historical logs for exploitation indicators — see Detection signatures below.

05Technical details

For the full vendor write-up, exploit chains, and reference implementations, see the references list in section 09.

06Detection signatures

Ask SARA in chat to draft a starting detection for this CVE in your stack of choice.

07Related CVEs

No directly-cited follow-up CVEs in the KB record for this advisory. The references list in section 09 carries the vendor cross-references.

08Timeline

• Published: 2017-11-08T03:29:00.200
• Last modified: 2026-05-13T00:24:29.033

09References

• github.com — https://github.com/thanethomson/MLAlchemy/commit/bc795757febdcce430d89f9d08f75c3…
• github.com — https://github.com/thanethomson/MLAlchemy/issues/1
• joel-malwarebenchmark.github.io — https://joel-malwarebenchmark.github.io/blog/2017/11/08/cve-2017-16615-critical-…
• github.com — https://github.com/thanethomson/MLAlchemy/commit/bc795757febdcce430d89f9d08f75c3…
• github.com — https://github.com/thanethomson/MLAlchemy/issues/1
• joel-malwarebenchmark.github.io — https://joel-malwarebenchmark.github.io/blog/2017/11/08/cve-2017-16615-critical-…