CVE-2022-38752 — snakeyaml
MEDIUMCVE-2022-38752 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-121 vulnerability in org.yaml:snakeyaml. A fix is available for org.yaml:snakeyaml — see the affected versions and patch details below.
DoS in SnakeYAML
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2022-38752.
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
org.yaml:snakeyamlReal-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
Using snakeYAML to parse untrusted YAML files may be vulnerable to Denial of Service attacks (DOS). If the parser is running on user supplied input, an attacker may supply content that causes the parser to crash by stack-overflow.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.yaml:snakeyaml | all versions | 1.32org.yaml:snakeyaml:1.32 |
Affected Products
snakeyamlsnakeyaml_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.yaml:snakeyaml, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.yaml:snakeyaml to 1.32 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2022-38752 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.
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.
Red Hat Build of Quarkus is not affected by this issue as it already includes the fixed version.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat AMQ Streams 2.3.0 | snakeyaml | RHSA-2023:0189 |
| Red Hat build of Eclipse Vert.x 4.3.3 | snakeyaml | RHSA-2022:6757 |
| Red Hat Data Grid 8.4.0 | snakeyaml | RHSA-2022:8524 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform | org.yaml/snakeyaml:1.33.0.SP1-redhat-00001 | RHSA-2023:1516 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 8 | eap7-snakeyaml-0:1.33.0-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el8eap | RHSA-2023:1513 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 9 | eap7-snakeyaml-0:1.33.0-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el9eap | RHSA-2023:1514 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 on RHEL 7 | eap7-snakeyaml-0:1.33.0-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el7eap | RHSA-2023:1512 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.13 for RHEL 8 | candlepin-0:4.2.13-1.el8sat | RHSA-2023:2097 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2022-38752 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.