pip-audit

pip-audit is a tool for scanning Python environments for packages with known vulnerabilities. It uses the Python Packaging Advisory Database (https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database) via the PyPI JSON API as a source of vulnerability reports.

This project is maintained in part by Trail of Bits with support from Google. This is not an official Google or Trail of Bits product.

Index

• Features
• Installation
  • Third-party packages
  • GitHub Actions
  • pre-commit support
• Usage
  • Exit codes
  • Dry runs
• Examples
• Troubleshooting
• Tips and Tricks
• Security model
• Licensing
• Contributing
• Code of Conduct

Features

• Support for auditing local environments and requirements-style files
• Support for multiple vulnerability services (PyPI, OSV)
• Support for emitting SBOMs in CycloneDX XML or JSON
• Support for automatically fixing vulnerable dependencies (--fix)
• Human and machine-readable output formats (columnar, Markdown, JSON)
• Seamlessly reuses your existing local pip caches

Installation

pip-audit requires Python 3.7 or newer, and can be installed directly via pip:

python -m pip install pip-audit

Third-party packages

There are multiple third-party packages for pip-audit. The matrices and badges below list some of them:

In particular, pip-audit can be installed via conda:

conda install -c conda-forge pip-audit

Third-party packages are not directly supported by this project. Please consult your package manager's documentation for more detailed installation guidance.

GitHub Actions

pip-audit has an official GitHub Action!

You can install it from the GitHub Marketplace, or add it to your CI manually:

jobs:
  pip-audit:
    steps:
      - uses: pypa/gh-action-pip-audit@v1.0.0
        with:
          inputs: requirements.txt

See the action documentation for more details and usage examples.

pre-commit support

pip-audit has pre-commit support.

For example, using pip-audit via pre-commit to audit a requirements file:

  - repo: https://github.com/pypa/pip-audit
    rev: v2.5.3
    hooks:
      -   id: pip-audit
          args: ["-r", "requirements.txt"]

ci:
  # Leave pip-audit to only run locally and not in CI
  # pre-commit.ci does not allow network calls
  skip: [pip-audit]

Any pip-audit arguments documented below can be passed.

Usage

You can run pip-audit as a standalone program, or via python -m:

pip-audit --help
python -m pip_audit --help

usage: pip-audit [-h] [-V] [-l] [-r REQUIREMENT] [-f FORMAT] [-s SERVICE] [-d]
                 [-S] [--desc [{on,off,auto}]] [--cache-dir CACHE_DIR]
                 [--progress-spinner {on,off}] [--timeout TIMEOUT]
                 [--path PATH] [-v] [--fix] [--require-hashes]
                 [--index-url INDEX_URL] [--extra-index-url URL]
                 [--skip-editable] [--no-deps] [-o FILE] [--ignore-vuln ID]
                 [project_path]

audit the Python environment for dependencies with known vulnerabilities

positional arguments:
  project_path          audit a local Python project at the given path
                        (default: None)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         show program's version number and exit
  -l, --local           show only results for dependencies in the local
                        environment (default: False)
  -r REQUIREMENT, --requirement REQUIREMENT
                        audit the given requirements file; this option can be
                        used multiple times (default: None)
  -f FORMAT, --format FORMAT
                        the format to emit audit results in (choices: columns,
                        json, cyclonedx-json, cyclonedx-xml, markdown)
                        (default: columns)
  -s SERVICE, --vulnerability-service SERVICE
                        the vulnerability service to audit dependencies
                        against (choices: osv, pypi) (default: pypi)
  -d, --dry-run         without `--fix`: collect all dependencies but do not
                        perform the auditing step; with `--fix`: perform the
                        auditing step but do not perform any fixes (default:
                        False)
  -S, --strict          fail the entire audit if dependency collection fails
                        on any dependency (default: False)
  --desc [{on,off,auto}]
                        include a description for each vulnerability; `auto`
                        defaults to `on` for the `json` format. This flag has
                        no effect on the `cyclonedx-json` or `cyclonedx-xml`
                        formats. (default: auto)
  --cache-dir CACHE_DIR
                        the directory to use as an HTTP cache for PyPI; uses
                        the `pip` HTTP cache by default (default: None)
  --progress-spinner {on,off}
                        display a progress spinner (default: on)
  --timeout TIMEOUT     set the socket timeout (default: 15)
  --path PATH           restrict to the specified installation path for
                        auditing packages; this option can be used multiple
                        times (default: [])
  -v, --verbose         run with additional debug logging; supply multiple
                        times to increase verbosity (default: 0)
  --fix                 automatically upgrade dependencies with known
                        vulnerabilities (default: False)
  --require-hashes      require a hash to check each requirement against, for
                        repeatable audits; this option is implied when any
                        package in a requirements file has a `--hash` option.
                        (default: False)
  --index-url INDEX_URL
                        base URL of the Python Package Index; this should
                        point to a repository compliant with PEP 503 (the
                        simple repository API) (default:
                        https://pypi.org/simple/)
  --extra-index-url URL
                        extra URLs of package indexes to use in addition to
                        `--index-url`; should follow the same rules as
                        `--index-url` (default: [])
  --skip-editable       don't audit packages that are marked as editable
                        (default: False)
  --no-deps             don't perform any dependency resolution; requires all
                        requirements are pinned to an exact version (default:
                        False)
  -o FILE, --output FILE
                        output results to the given file (default: stdout)
  --ignore-vuln ID      ignore a specific vulnerability by its vulnerability
                        ID; this option can be used multiple times (default:
                        [])

Exit codes

On completion, pip-audit will exit with a code indicating its status.

The current codes are:

• 0: No known vulnerabilities were detected.
• 1: One or more known vulnerabilities were found.

pip-audit's exit code cannot be suppressed. See Suppressing exit codes from pip-audit for supported alternatives.

Dry runs

pip-audit supports the --dry-run flag, which can be used to control whether an audit (or fix) step is actually performed.

• On its own, pip-audit --dry-run skips the auditing step and prints the number of dependencies that would have been audited.
• In fix mode, pip-audit --fix --dry-run performs the auditing step and prints out the fix behavior (i.e., which dependencies would be upgraded or skipped) that would have been performed.

Examples

Audit dependencies for the current Python environment:

$ pip-audit
No known vulnerabilities found

Audit dependencies for a given requirements file:

$ pip-audit -r ./requirements.txt
No known vulnerabilities found

Audit dependencies for a requirements file, excluding system packages:

$ pip-audit -r ./requirements.txt -l
No known vulnerabilities found

Audit dependencies for a local Python project:

$ pip-audit .
No known vulnerabilities found

pip-audit searches the provided path for various Python "project" files. At the moment, only pyproject.toml is supported.

Audit dependencies when there are vulnerabilities present:

$ pip-audit
Found 2 known vulnerabilities in 1 package
Name  Version ID             Fix Versions
----  ------- -------------- ------------
Flask 0.5     PYSEC-2019-179 1.0
Flask 0.5     PYSEC-2018-66  0.12.3

Audit dependencies including descriptions:

$ pip-audit --desc
Found 2 known vulnerabilities in 1 package
Name  Version ID             Fix Versions Description
----  ------- -------------- ------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Flask 0.5     PYSEC-2019-179 1.0          The Pallets Project Flask before 1.0 is affected by: unexpected memory usage. The impact is: denial of service. The attack vector is: crafted encoded JSON data. The fixed version is: 1. NOTE: this may overlap CVE-2018-1000656.
Flask 0.5     PYSEC-2018-66  0.12.3       The Pallets Project flask version Before 0.12.3 contains a CWE-20: Improper Input Validation vulnerability in flask that can result in Large amount of memory usage possibly leading to denial of service. This attack appear to be exploitable via Attacker provides JSON data in incorrect encoding. This vulnerability appears to have been fixed in 0.12.3. NOTE: this may overlap CVE-2019-1010083.

Audit dependencies in JSON format:

$ pip-audit -f json | python -m json.tool
Found 2 known vulnerabilities in 1 package
[
  {
    "name": "flask",
    "version": "0.5",
    "vulns": [
      {
        "id": "PYSEC-2019-179",
        "fix_versions": [
          "1.0"
        ],
        "description": "The Pallets Project Flask before 1.0 is affected by: unexpected memory usage. The impact is: denial of service. The attack vector is: crafted encoded JSON data. The fixed version is: 1. NOTE: this may overlap CVE-2018-1000656."
      },
      {
        "id": "PYSEC-2018-66",
        "fix_versions": [
          "0.12.3"
        ],
        "description": "The Pallets Project flask version Before 0.12.3 contains a CWE-20: Improper Input Validation vulnerability in flask that can result in Large amount of memory usage possibly leading to denial of service. This attack appear to be exploitable via Attacker provides JSON data in incorrect encoding. This vulnerability appears to have been fixed in 0.12.3. NOTE: this may overlap CVE-2019-1010083."
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "name": "jinja2",
    "version": "3.0.2",
    "vulns": []
  },
  {
    "name": "pip",
    "version": "21.3.1",
    "vulns": []
  },
  {
    "name": "setuptools",
    "version": "57.4.0",
    "vulns": []
  },
  {
    "name": "werkzeug",
    "version": "2.0.2",
    "vulns": []
  },
  {
    "name": "markupsafe",
    "version": "2.0.1",
    "vulns": []
  }
]

Audit and attempt to automatically upgrade vulnerable dependencies:

$ pip-audit --fix
Found 2 known vulnerabilities in 1 package and fixed 2 vulnerabilities in 1 package
Name  Version ID             Fix Versions Applied Fix
----- ------- -------------- ------------ ----------------------------------------
flask 0.5     PYSEC-2019-179 1.0          Successfully upgraded flask (0.5 => 1.0)
flask 0.5     PYSEC-2018-66  0.12.3       Successfully upgraded flask (0.5 => 1.0)

Troubleshooting

Have you resolved a problem with pip-audit? Help us by contributing to this section!

pip-audit shows irrelevant vulnerability reports!

In a perfect world, vulnerability feeds would have an infinite signal-to-noise ratio: every vulnerability report would be (1) correct, and (2) applicable to every use of every dependency.

Unfortunately, neither of these is guaranteed: vulnerability feeds are not immune to extraneous or spam reports, and not all uses of a particular dependency map to all potential classes of vulnerabilities.

If your pip-audit runs produce vulnerability reports that aren't actionable for your particular application or use case, you can use the --ignore-vuln ID option to ignore specific vulnerability reports. --ignore-vuln supports aliases, so you can use a GHSA-xxx or CVE-xxx ID instead of a PYSEC-xxx ID if the report in question does not have a PYSEC ID.

For example, here is how you might ignore GHSA-w596-4wvx-j9j6, which is a common source of noisy vulnerability reports and false positives for users of pytest:

# Run the audit as normal, but exclude any reports that match GHSA-w596-4wvx-j9j6
$ pip-audit --ignore-vuln GHSA-w596-4wvx-j9j6

The --ignore-vuln ID option works with all other dependency resolution and auditing options, meaning that it should function correctly with requirements-style inputs, alternative vulnerability feeds, and so forth.

It can also be passed multiple times, to ignore multiple reports:

# Run the audit as normal, but exclude any reports that match these IDs
$ pip-audit --ignore-vuln CVE-XXX-YYYY --ignore-vuln CVE-ZZZ-AAAA

pip-audit takes longer than I expect!

Depending on how you're using it, pip-audit may have to perform its own dependency resolution, which can take roughly as long as pip install does for a project. See the security model for an explanation.

You have two options for avoiding dependency resolution: audit a pre-installed environment, or ensure that your dependencies are already fully resolved.

If you know that you've already fully configured an environment equivalent to the one that pip-audit -r requirements.txt would audit, you can simply reuse it:

# Note the absence of any "input" arguments, indicating that the environment is used.
$ pip-audit

# Optionally filter out non-local packages, for virtual environments:
$ pip-audit --local

Alternatively, if your input is fully pinned (and optionally hashed), you can tell pip-audit to skip dependency resolution with either --no-deps (pinned without hashes) or --require-hashes (pinned including hashes).

The latter is equivalent to pip's hash-checking mode and is preferred, since it offers additional integrity.

# fails if any dependency is not fully pinned
$ pip-audit --no-deps -r requirements.txt

# fails if any dependency is not fully pinned *or* is missing hashes
$ pip-audit --require-hashes -r requirements.txt

Tips and Tricks

Running against a pipenv project

pipenv uses both a Pipfile and Pipfile.lock file to track and freeze dependencies instead of a requirements.txt file. pip-audit cannot process the Pipfile[.lock] files directly, however, these can be converted to a supported requirements.txt file that pip-audit can run against. pipenv has a built-in command to convert dependencies to a requirements.txt file (as of v2022.4.8):

$ pipenv run pip-audit -r <(pipenv requirements)

Suppressing exit codes from pip-audit

pip-audit intentionally does not support internally suppressing its own exit codes.

Users who need to suppress a failing pip-audit invocation can use one of the standard shell idioms for doing so:

pip-audit || true

or, to exit entirely:

pip-audit || exit 0

The exit code can also be captured and handled explicitly:

pip-audit
exitcode="${?}"
# do something with ${exitcode}

See Exit codes for a list of potential codes that need handling.

Security Model

This section exists to describe the security assumptions you can and must not make when using pip-audit.

TL;DR: If you wouldn't pip install it, you should not pip audit it.

pip-audit is a tool for auditing Python environments for packages with known vulnerabilities. A "known vulnerability" is a publicly reported flaw in a package that, if uncorrected, might allow a malicious actor to perform unintended actions.

pip-audit can protect you against known vulnerabilities by telling you when you have them, and how you should upgrade them. For example, if you have somepackage==1.2.3 in your environment, pip-audit can tell you that it needs to be upgraded to 1.2.4.

You can assume that pip-audit will make a best effort to fully resolve all of your Python dependencies and either fully audit each or explicitly state which ones it has skipped, as well as why it has skipped them.

pip-audit is not a static code analyzer. It analyzes dependency trees, not code, and it cannot guarantee that arbitrary dependency resolutions occur statically. To understand why this is, refer to Dustin Ingram's excellent post on dependency resolution in Python.

As such: you must not assume that pip-audit will defend you against malicious packages. In particular, it is incorrect to treat pip-audit -r INPUT as a "more secure" variant of pip-audit. For all intents and purposes, pip-audit -r INPUT is functionally equivalent to pip install -r INPUT, with a small amount of non-security isolation to avoid conflicts with any of your local environments.

pip-audit is first and foremost a auditing tool for Python packages. You must not assume that pip-audit will detect or flag "transitive" vulnerabilities that might be exposed through Python packages, but are not actually part of the package itself. For example, pip-audit's vulnerability information sources are unlikely to include an advisory for a vulnerable shared library that a popular Python package might use, since the Python package's version is not strongly connected to the shared library's version.

Licensing

pip-audit is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.

pip-audit reuses and modifies examples from resolvelib, which is licensed under the ISC license.

Contributing

See the contributing docs for details.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting with this project is expected to follow the PSF Code of Conduct.