CVE-2022-23487 — libp2p
HIGHCVE-2022-23487 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in libp2p. A fix is available for libp2p — see the affected versions and patch details below.
libp2p denial of service vulnerability from lack of resource management
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-23487.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
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.
libp2pnpmDescription
Impact
Versions older than v0.38.0 of js-libp2p are vulnerable to targeted resource exhaustion attacks. These attacks target libp2p’s connection, stream, peer, and memory management. An attacker can cause the allocation of large amounts of memory, ultimately leading to the process getting killed by the host’s operating system. While a connection manager tasked with keeping the number of connections within manageable limits has been part of js-libp2p, this component was designed to handle the regular churn of peers, not a targeted resource exhaustion attack.
Patches (What to do as a js-libp2p consumer:)
Update your js-libp2p dependency to v0.38.0 or greater.
Workarounds
There are no workarounds, and so we recommend to upgrade your js-libp2p version. Some range of attacks can be mitigated using OS tools (like manually blocking malicious peers using iptables or ufw ) or making use of a load balancer in front of libp2p nodes. You can also use the allow deny list in js-libp2p to deny specific peers.
However these require direct action & responsibility on your part and are no substitutes for upgrading js-libp2p. Therefore, we highly recommend upgrading your js-libp2p version for the way it enables tighter scoped limits and provides visibility into and easier reasoning about js-libp2p resource utilization.
References
- DoS Mitigation page for more information on how to incorporate mitigation strategies, monitor your application, and respond to attacks: https://docs.libp2p.io/reference/dos-mitigation/.
- Documentation on how to configure limits to prevent excessive resource consumption: https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p/blob/master/doc/LIMITS.md
- Documentation on how to configure metrics: https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p/blob/master/doc/METRICS.md
Please see the related disclosure for go-libp2p: https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p/security/advisories/GHSA-j7qp-mfxf-8xjw and rust-libp2p: https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/security/advisories/GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please email us at [email protected].
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | libp2p | all versions | 0.38.0npm install libp2p@0.38.0 |
Affected Products
libp2pprotocolDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for libp2p, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update libp2p to 0.38.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-23487 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-23487 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.