CVE-2022-24999 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-1321 vulnerability in qs. 3 public exploit references exist, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for qs — see the affected versions and patch details below.
qs vulnerable to Prototype Pollution
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-24999.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-24999 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the 10–50% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
qsnpmDescription
qs before 6.10.3, as used in Express before 4.17.3 and other products, allows attackers to cause a Node process hang for an Express application because an __ proto__ key can be used. In many typical Express use cases, an unauthenticated remote attacker can place the attack payload in the query string of the URL that is used to visit the application, such as a[proto]=b&a[proto]&a[length]=100000000. The fix was backported to qs 6.9.7, 6.8.3, 6.7.3, 6.6.1, 6.5.3, 6.4.1, 6.3.3, and 6.2.4 (and therefore Express 4.17.3, which has "deps: [email protected]" in its release description, is not vulnerable).
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | qs | ≥ 6.10.0&&< 6.10.3 | 6.10.3npm install qs@6.10.3 |
| 📦npm | qs | ≥ 6.9.0&&< 6.9.7 | 6.9.7npm install qs@6.9.7 |
| 📦npm | qs | ≥ 6.8.0&&< 6.8.3 | 6.8.3npm install qs@6.8.3 |
| 📦npm | qs | ≥ 6.7.0&&< 6.7.3 | 6.7.3npm install qs@6.7.3 |
| 📦npm | qs | ≥ 6.6.0&&< 6.6.1 | 6.6.1npm install qs@6.6.1 |
| 📦npm | qs | ≥ 6.5.0&&< 6.5.3 | 6.5.3npm install qs@6.5.3 |
Affected Products
debian linuxdebianexpressopenjsfqsqs_projectResearch 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 qs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update qs to 6.10.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-24999 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.
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.
- The qs and express Package is not used by the OpenShift Container Platform console directly and is only a third-party package dependency. Hence, it is marked as wontfix. As a result, any services that depend on Openshift for their use of qs and express are marked won't fix. - In OpenShift Service Mesh, 'qs' is…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| MTA-6.0-RHEL-8 | mta/mta-ui-rhel8:6.0.1-10 | RHSA-2023:0934 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | nodejs:14-8070020221212161539.bd1311ed | RHSA-2023:0050 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Extended Update Support | nodejs:14-8040020230306170312.522a0ee4 | RHSA-2023:1533 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Extended Update Support | nodejs:14-8060020230306170237.ad008a3a | RHSA-2023:1742 |
| Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Containers 1.7 | rhmtc/openshift-migration-ui-rhel8:v1.7.8-5 | RHSA-2023:1428 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh 2.2 for RHEL 8 | openshift-service-mesh/prometheus-rhel8:2.2.7-7 | RHSA-2023:3645 |
| Red Hat Software Collections for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | rh-nodejs14-nodejs-0:14.21.1-3.el7 | RHSA-2023:0612 |
| RHODF-4.12-RHEL-8 | odf4/mcg-core-rhel8:v4.12.3-4 | RHSA-2023:3265 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-24999 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.