GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m

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Source
https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m
Import Source
https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2025/10/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m.json
JSON Data
https://api.test.osv.dev/v1/vulns/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m
Aliases
Published
2025-10-17T17:08:11Z
Modified
2026-07-29T03:49:18Z
Severity
  • 7.5 (High) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CVSS Calculator
Summary
OpenBao has potential Denial of Service vulnerability when processing malicious unauthenticated JSON requests
Details

Summary

JSON objects after decoding might use more memory than their serialized version. It is possible to tune a JSON to maximize the factor between serialized memory usage and deserialized memory usage (similar to a zip bomb). While reproducing the issue, we could reach a factor of about 35. This can be used to circumvent the [max_request_size (https://openbao.org/docs/configuration/listener/tcp/) configuration parameter, which is meant to protect against Denial of Service attacks, and also makes Denial of Service attacks easier in general, as the attacker needs much less resources.

Details

The request body is parsed into a map[string]interface{} https://github.com/openbao/openbao/blob/788536bd3e10818a7b4fb00aac6affc23388e5a9/http/logical.go#L50 very early in the request handling chain (before authentication), which means an attacker can send a specifically crafted JSON object and cause an OOM crash. Additionally, for simpler requests with large numbers of strings, the audit subsystem can consume large quantities of CPU.

To remediate, set max_request_json_memory and max_request_json_strings.

Impact

  • Unauthenticated Denial of Service

Resources

This issue was disclosed directly to HashiCorp and is the OpenBao equivalent of the following tickets:

HashiCorp attributes the problem to the audit subsystem. For OpenBao, it was noted the problem was additionally in the requests handling logic.

Database specific 
{
    "cwe_ids":  [
        "CWE-400"
    ],
    "github_reviewed":  true,
    "github_reviewed_at":  "2025-10-17T17:08:11Z",
    "nvd_published_at":  "2025-10-17T16:15:38Z",
    "severity":  "HIGH"
}
References

Affected packages

Go / github.com/openbao/openbao

Package

Name
github.com/openbao/openbao
View open source insights on deps.dev
Purl
pkg:golang/github.com/openbao/openbao

Affected ranges

Type
SEMVER
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced version / All previous versions are affected
Fixed
2.4.1

Database specific

last_known_affected_version_range 
"<= 2.4.0"
source 
"https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2025/10/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m/GHSA-g46h-2rq9-gw5m.json"