ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption

MITRE NVD CVE.ORG JSON API

Summary

CVECVE-2026-55588
StatePUBLISHED
AssignerGitHub_M
Source PriorityCVE Program / NVD first with legacy fallback
Published2026-08-25 21:17:02 UTC
Updated2026-08-27 17:18:49 UTC
DescriptionORAS (OCI Registry As Storage) is a CLI and library for managing artifacts in OCI registries. In ORAS CLI versions up to and including 1.3.2, the recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a malicious OCI registry that returns a cyclic referrer graph causes unbounded recursion and memory growth. This affects oras discover, whose recursive traversal is enabled by default because the --depth option defaults to 0 (unlimited), as well as the recursive referrer counting used by the oras backup and oras restore workflows. A cyclic graph can be as simple as A referring to B and B referring back to A. A malicious registry can use this to cause a client-side denial of service, exhausting CPU and memory and hanging automation or CI/CD pipelines that run ORAS against untrusted registry metadata. The vulnerability does not extend to code execution, artifact substitution, or integrity bypass. This issue has been fixed in version 1.3.3.

Risk And Classification

Primary CVSS: v3.1 6.5 MEDIUM from [email protected]

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

EPSS: 0.003020000 probability, percentile 0.223000000 (date 2026-08-27)

Problem Types: CWE-400 | CWE-674 | CWE-835 | CWE-400 CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption | CWE-674 CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion | CWE-835 CWE-835: Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

VersionSourceTypeScoreSeverityVector
3.1[email protected]Secondary6.5MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
3.1CNADECLARED6.5MEDIUMCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVSS v3.1 Breakdown

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

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

Vendor Declared Affected Products

SourceVendorProductVersionPlatforms
CNA Oras-project Oras affected < 1.3.3 Not specified

References

ReferenceSourceLinkTags
github.com/oras-project/oras/commit/440eb65d07a0631f131944d28e7c29d562ec... [email protected] github.com
github.com/oras-project/oras/security/advisories/GHSA-298f-872v-2rcx [email protected] github.com
CVE Program record CVE.ORG www.cve.org canonical
NVD vulnerability detail NVD nvd.nist.gov canonical, analysis

© CVE.report 2026

Use of this information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition. There are NO warranties, implied or otherwise, with regard to this information or its use. Any use of this information is at the user's risk. It is the responsibility of user to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, opinion, advice or other content. EACH USER WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY consequences of his or her direct or indirect use of this web site. ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. This site will NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT or any other kind of loss.

CVE, CWE, and OVAL are registred trademarks of The MITRE Corporation and the authoritative source of CVE content is MITRE's CVE web site. This site includes MITRE data granted under the following license.

Free CVE JSON API cve.report/api

CVE.report and Source URL Uptime Status status.cve.report