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🛡️ CVE-2026-45740 — protobufjs

🟡 CVSS 5.3 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit CWE-674 OSV
5.3
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

protobufjs: Denial of Service via unbounded recursive JSON descriptor expansion

Summary

protobufjs could recurse without a depth limit while expanding nested JSON descriptors through Root.fromJSON() and Namespace.addJSON().

A crafted JSON descriptor with deeply nested namespace definitions could cause the JavaScript call stack to be exhausted during descriptor loading.

Impact

An attacker who can provide JSON descriptors loaded by an application may be able to crash the process or otherwise cause schema loading to fail with a stack overflow.

This affects applications that load JSON descriptors from untrusted sources with affected versions.

Preconditions

  • The application must load JSON descriptor data influenced by an attacker.
  • The crafted descriptor must contain deeply nested nested namespace objects.
  • The affected Root.fromJSON() / Namespace.addJSON() descriptor expansion path must process the crafted input.

Workarounds

Avoid loading untrusted protobuf JSON descriptors with affected versions. If immediate upgrade is not possible, reject excessively nested descriptor structures at an outer validation boundary where feasible, or isolate descriptor loading in a process that can be safely restarted.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality none, integrity none, availability low.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

  • Attack vector: Network — reachable from anywhere that can route to the service.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: None — an unauthenticated stranger can try it.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: None.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: Low — limited, and the attacker does not choose what is affected.

Weakness class

CVE-2026-45740 is classified as CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion. The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.

Affected software

CVE-2026-45740 is recorded against 1 package.

  • protobufjs

Timeline and source

Published on 19 May 2026 and last revised on 17 June 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

github.com (Web)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
github.com (Package)

Other advisories for this package

protobufjs has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

Same weakness in other software

These advisories are the same class of weakness (CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion) in other software:

CVE-2026-45740 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity MEDIUM
CVSS Score 5.3
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CWE CWE-674
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2026-05-19
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-06-17
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
protobufjs — —

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ⓘ Data Notice: The information presented above has been compiled from publicly available internet sources. Boteraser aggregates this data solely for informational purposes and does not independently classify, evaluate, or endorse any findings about the vulnerabilities listed. The accuracy and completeness of this information is the sole responsibility of the original publishers. Boteraser and its operators accept no liability for any decisions made based on this data.

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