numpy 1.9.X security issue

[cwhanse]

GHSA-6p56-wp2h-9hxr

Consider advancing to numpy>=1.21

[kandersolar]

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-33430 tentatively suggests that this isn't worth worrying about. It'd be a shame to require such a recent version of numpy (1.21.0 was released Jun 22, 2021) if there's no real need to do so.

[kandersolar]

I think I'm inclined to do nothing here since the numpy maintainers say this is not a real vulnerability. See numpy/numpy#18993 (comment) for discussion among the numpy maintainers regarding this particular security issue as well as others. I encourage anyone interested to read through that discussion, but my takeaway is that the recent CVEs filed against numpy are spurious and fine for us to ignore. See also "disputed" here: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-16835/product_id-39445/Numpy-Numpy.html

However, if we do advance to numpy>=1.21, we'd need to revise our dependency policy, which currently sticks to NEP-29:

pvanalytics/docs/index.rst

Lines 75 to 82 in e8ce801

	This project follows the guidelines laid out in
	`NEP-29 <https://numpy.org/neps/nep-0029-deprecation_policy.html>`_.
	It supports:
	- All minor versions of Python released 42 months prior to the project,
	and at minimum the two latest minor versions.
	- All minor versions of numpy released in the 24 months prior to the project,
	and at minimum the last three minor versions

I don't think it changes our decision here, but maybe of interest regardless, here's a recent unresolved discussion about possibly modifying NEP-29 to accommodate security issues: numpy/numpy#21713.