protobufjs: Denial of service through unbounded protobuf recursion

Summary

CVE	CVE-2026-44289
State	PUBLISHED
Assigner	GitHub_M
Source Priority	CVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published	2026-05-13 16:16:55 UTC
Updated	2026-07-14 12:17:06 UTC
Description	protobufjs compiles protobuf definitions into JavaScript (JS) functions. Prior to 7.5.6 and 8.0.2, protobufjs could recurse without a depth limit while decoding nested protobuf data. This affected both skipping unknown group fields and generated decoding of nested message fields. A crafted protobuf binary payload could cause the JavaScript call stack to be exhausted during decoding. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.5.6 and 8.0.2.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 7.5 HIGH from ADP

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS: 0.000580000 probability, percentile 0.182200000 (date 2026-05-20)

Problem Types: CWE-674 | CWE-606 | CWE-674 CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion | CWE-606 Unchecked Input for Loop Condition

Version	Source	Type	Score	Severity	Vector
3.1	ADP	CVSS	7.5	HIGH	`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`
3.1	[email protected]	Secondary	7.5	HIGH	`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`
3.1	0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c	Secondary	7.5	HIGH	`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`
3.1	CNA	DECLARED	7.5	HIGH	`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector

Network

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

None

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

NVD Known Affected Configurations (CPE 2.3)

Type	Vendor	Product	Version	Update	Edition	Language
Application	Protobufjs Project	Protobufjs	All	All	All	All

Vendor Declared Affected Products

Source	Vendor	Product	Version	Platforms
CNA	Protobufjs	Protobuf.js	affected < 7.5.6	Not specified
CNA	Protobufjs	Protobuf.js	affected >= 8.0.0, < 8.0.2	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	OpenShift Pipelines	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Build Of Podman Desktop	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Ceph Storage 9	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI RHEL AI 3	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat OpenShift AI RHOAI	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Self-service Automation Portal 2	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	OpenShift Service Mesh 3	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Developer Hub	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Hardened Images	Not specified	Not specified
ADP	Red Hat	Red Hat Openshift Data Foundation 4	Not specified	Not specified

References

Reference	Source	Link	Tags
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi	0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c	bugzilla.redhat.com
security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-44289.json	0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c	security.access.redhat.com
access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-44289	0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c	access.redhat.com
github.com/protobufjs/protobuf.js/security/advisories/GHSA-685m-2w69-288q	[email protected]	github.com	Mitigation, Vendor Advisory
CVE Program record	CVE.ORG	www.cve.org	canonical
NVD vulnerability detail	NVD	nvd.nist.gov	canonical, analysis

No vendor comments have been submitted for this CVE.

Additional Advisory Data

Source	Time	Event
ADP	2026-05-13T16:05:16.500Z	Reported to Red Hat.
ADP	2026-05-13T14:39:09.791Z	Made public.

Workarounds

ADP: Avoid decoding untrusted protobuf binary data with affected versions. If immediate upgrade is not possible, reject excessively nested messages at an outer protocol boundary where feasible, or isolate protobuf decoding in a process that can be safely restarted.

There are currently no legacy QID mappings associated with this CVE.