CVE-2022-31198 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-682 vulnerability in @openzeppelin/contracts. A fix is available for @openzeppelin/contracts — see the affected versions and patch details below.
GovernorVotesQuorumFraction updates to quorum may affect past defeated proposals in @openzeppelin/contracts
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-2022-31198.
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-2022-31198 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 378,156 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
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.
@openzeppelin/contractsnpm@openzeppelin/contracts-upgradeablenpmDescription
Impact
This issue concerns instances of Governor that use the module GovernorVotesQuorumFraction, a mechanism that determines quorum requirements as a percentage of the voting token's total supply. In affected instances, when a proposal is passed to lower the quorum requirement, past proposals may become executable if they had been defeated only due to lack of quorum, and the number of votes it received meets the new quorum requirement.
Analysis of instances on chain found only one proposal that met this condition, and we are actively monitoring for new occurrences of this particular issue.
Patches
This issue has been patched in v4.7.2.
Workarounds
Avoid lowering quorum requirements if a past proposal was defeated for lack of quorum.
References
https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/openzeppelin-contracts/pull/3561
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, or need assistance deploying the fix, email us at [email protected].
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | @openzeppelin/contracts | ≥ 4.3.0&&< 4.7.2 | 4.7.2npm install @openzeppelin/contracts@4.7.2 |
| 📦npm | @openzeppelin/contracts-upgradeable | ≥ 4.3.0&&< 4.7.2 | 4.7.2npm install @openzeppelin/contracts-upgradeable@4.7.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for @openzeppelin/contracts, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update @openzeppelin/contracts to 4.7.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-31198 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-2022-31198 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2022-31198. 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-2022-31198 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2022-31198 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.