CVE-2022-31018 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in com.typesafe.play:play_2.13. A fix is available for com.typesafe.play:play_2.13 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Denial of service binding form from JSON in Play Framework
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-2022-31018.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2022-31018 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,636 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
com.typesafe.play:play_2.13☕com.typesafe.play:play_2.12Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
A denial-of-service vulnerability has been discovered in Play's forms library, in both the Scala and Java APIs. This can occur when using either the Form#bindFromRequest method on a JSON request body or the Form#bind method directly on a JSON value. If the JSON data being bound to the form contains a deeply-nested JSON object or array, the form binding implementation may consume all available heap space and cause an OutOfMemoryError. If executing on the default dispatcher and akka.jvm-exit-on-fatal-error is enabled—as it is by default—then this can crash the application process.
Form.bindFromRequest is vulnerable when using any body parser that produces a type of AnyContent or JsValue in Scala, or one that can produce a JsonNode in Java. This includes Play's default body parser.
Patches
This vulnerability been patched in version 2.8.16. There is now a global limit on the depth of a JSON object that can be parsed, which can be configured by the user if necessary.
Workarounds
Applications that do not need to parse a request body of type application/json can switch from the default body parser to another body parser that supports only the specific type of body they expect; for example, the formUrlEncoded body parser can be used if the Play action only needs to accept application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | com.typesafe.play:play_2.13 | ≥ 2.8.3&&< 2.8.16 | 2.8.16com.typesafe.play:play_2.13:2.8.16 |
| ☕Maven | com.typesafe.play:play_2.12 | ≥ 2.8.3&&< 2.8.16 | 2.8.16com.typesafe.play:play_2.12:2.8.16 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for com.typesafe.play:play_2.13, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update com.typesafe.play:play_2.13 to 2.8.16 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-31018 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2022-31018 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-31018. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-31018 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-31018 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.