CVE-2019-17514: High severity python 2.7 vulnerability
Last updated 18 August 2025
Other sources
library/glob.html in the Python 2 and 3 documentation before 2016 has potentially misleading information about whether sorting occurs, as demonstrated by irreproducible cancer-research results. NOTE: the effects of this documentation cross application domains, and thus it is likely that security-relevant code elsewhere is affected. This issue is not a Python implementation bug, and there are no reports that NMR researchers were specifically relying on library/glob.html. In other words, because the older documentation stated "finds all the pathnames matching a specified pattern according to the rules used by the Unix shell," one might have incorrectly inferred that the sorting that occurs in a Unix shell also occurred for glob.glob. There is a workaround in newer versions of Willoughby nmr-datacompilation-p2.py and nmr-datacompilation-p3.py, which call sort() directly.
— Launchpad
Affected Software
Remediation
Event History
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CVE-2019-17514?
CVE-2019-17514 is a vulnerability in the Python 2 and 3 documentation before 2016 that contains potentially misleading information about whether sorting occurs.
What is the severity of CVE-2019-17514?
The severity of CVE-2019-17514 is high, with a CVSS score of 7.5.
Which software versions are affected by CVE-2019-17514?
CVE-2019-17514 affects Python 2.7.17-1~18.04ubuntu1.1, Python 2.7.18-1~20.04.1, Python 2.7.6-8ubuntu0.6+, Python 2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.12, Python 3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.11, Python 3.6.9-1~18.04ubuntu1.1, Python 3.4.3-1ubuntu1~14.04.7+, Python 3.8.0-3~18.04, and Python 3.8.2-1ubuntu1.2.
How can I fix CVE-2019-17514?
To fix CVE-2019-17514, update your Python version to a patched release, such as Python 2.7.17-1~18.04ubuntu1.1, Python 2.7.18-1~20.04.1, Python 2.7.6-8ubuntu0.6+, Python 2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.12, Python 3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.11, Python 3.6.9-1~18.04ubuntu1.1, Python 3.4.3-1ubuntu1~14.04.7+, Python 3.8.0-3~18.04, or Python 3.8.2-1ubuntu1.2, depending on your operating system.
Where can I find more information about CVE-2019-17514?
You can find more information about CVE-2019-17514 at the following references: [1] [2] [3].