It was reported [1],[2] that pip, a package installer for Python modules, would retrieve code to install in an insecure manner. When pip is used to install a module, that code is retrieved from the internet and then, in the presence of setup.py, is executed. If pip is used as root (e.g. "sudo pip install [module]"), then this code is executed with root permissions. Because pip does not do TLS certificate verification, or package verification, it is trivial for an attacker to perform a MitM attack and cause the user attempting to install a module to execute arbitrary code. As of version 1.3, pip provides SSL certificate verification over HTTPS [3],[4]. [1] https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/425 [2] http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/17rfh7/warning_dont_use_pip_in_an_untrusted_network_a/ [3] https://github.com/pypa/pip/pull/791/files [4] http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/logic.html#ssl-certificate-verification
Created python-pip tracking bugs for this issue Affects: fedora-all [bug 968060] Affects: epel-all [bug 968061]
python-pip 1.3 is already stable in all current fedora releases (17, 18, 19, rawhide) and el6. python-pip upstream has a minimum python version requirement of 2.6, so the fix for el5 is a bit tougher but I'll take a look to see what's reasonable there.
Thanks, Tim. I realized that the manifest I looked at initially is out of date, so I looked at koji and just now realized that 1.3.1 is already in there. If it's possible to fix in EPEL5, fantastic. If it's not then it is what it is; looking at the changeset it's quite significant so might be understandably difficult. Thank you for taking a look at it, however!
Closing this bug as the epel5 tracker is sufficient for its purpose.
Upstream changelog lists this as fixed in 1.3: SSL Cert Verification; Make https the default for PyPI access. Thanks James Cleveland, Giovanni Bajo, Marcus Smith and many others (PR #791, CVE-2013-1629). https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/news.html https://github.com/pypa/pip/pull/791 https://github.com/pypa/pip/pull/789