Answer in brief
CVE-2023-46250 records a Medium severity (CVSS 5.1) vulnerability in Possible Infinite Loop when PdfWriter(clone_from) is used with a PDF. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps pypdf (pypi). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 5.1. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps pypdf (pypi). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| pypdfpypi | >=3.7.0 <3.17.0 | 3.17.0 |
Published upstream
Oct 31, 2023
Evidence: source:osv:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Sep 10, 2026
Evidence: source:osv:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Sep 10, 2026
### Impact An attacker who uses this vulnerability can craft a PDF which leads to an infinite loop. This infinite loop blocks the current process and can utilize a single core of the CPU by 100%. It does not affect memory usage. That is, for example, the case when the pypdf-user manipulates an incoming malicious PDF e.g. by merging it with another PDF or by adding annotations. ### Patches The issue was fixed with #2264 ### Workarounds If you cannot update your version of pypdf, you should modify `pypdf/generic/_data_structures.py` just like #2264 did.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.