PyPitfall: Dependency Chaos and Software Supply Chain Vulnerabilities in Python

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18075v1
• Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2025 03:58:18 GMT
• Title: PyPitfall: Dependency Chaos and Software Supply Chain Vulnerabilities in Python
• Authors: Jacob Mahon, Chenxi Hou, Zhihao Yao,
• Abstract summary: This paper introduces PyPitfall, a quantitative analysis of vulnerable dependencies across the PyPI ecosystem.<n>We analyzed the dependency structures of 378,573 PyPI packages and identified 4,655 packages that explicitly require at least one known-vulnerable version.<n>We aim to raise awareness of Python software supply chain security by characterizing the ecosystem-wide dependency landscape.
• Score: 1.2644387713029346
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Python software development heavily relies on third-party packages. Direct and transitive dependencies create a labyrinth of software supply chains. While it is convenient to reuse code, vulnerabilities within these dependency chains can propagate through dependencies, potentially affecting down-stream packages and applications. PyPI, the official Python package repository, hosts many packages and lacks a comprehensive analysis of the prevalence of vulnerable dependencies. This paper introduces PyPitfall, a quantitative analysis of vulnerable dependencies across the PyPI ecosystem. We analyzed the dependency structures of 378,573 PyPI packages and identified 4,655 packages that explicitly require at least one known-vulnerable version and 141,044 packages that permit vulnerable versions within specified ranges. By characterizing the ecosystem-wide dependency landscape and the security impact of transitive dependencies, we aim to raise awareness of Python software supply chain security.

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