CVE-2021-23362 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-1333 vulnerability in hosted-git-info. 2 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2021-23362 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in hosted-git-info
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
hosted-git-infonpmDescription
The package hosted-git-info before 3.0.8 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) via regular expression shortcutMatch in the fromUrl function in index.js. The affected regular expression exhibits polynomial worst-case time complexity.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | hosted-git-info | all versions | 2.8.9 |
| 📦npm | hosted-git-info | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.0.8 | 3.0.8 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for hosted-git-info. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update hosted-git-info to 2.8.9 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-23362 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2021-23362 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2021-23362. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
While some components do package a vulnerable version of hosted-git-info, access to them requires OpenShift OAuth credentials and hence have been marked with a Low impact. This applies to the following products: - OpenShift Container Platform (OCP) - OpenShift ServiceMesh (OSSM) - Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management…
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2021-23362 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2021-23362 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.