CVE-2023-0163
HIGHCVE-2023-0163 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.4) CWE-1321 vulnerability in convict. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2023-0163 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Prototype Pollution in convict
Blast Radius
convictReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects npm packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Improperly Controlled Modification of Object Prototype Attributes ('Prototype Pollution') vulnerability in Mozilla Convict.
This allows an attacker to inject attributes that are used in other components, or to override existing attributes with ones that have incompatible type, which may lead to a crash.
The main use case of Convict is for handling server-side configurations written by the admins owning the servers, and not random users. So it's unlikely that an admin would deliberately sabotage their own server. Still, a situation can happen where an admin not knowledgeable about JavaScript could be tricked by an attacker into writing the malicious JavaScript code into some config files.
This issue affects Convict: before 6.2.4.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | convict | all versions | 6.2.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for convict. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update convict to 6.2.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-0163 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2023-0163 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2023-0163. 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-2023-0163 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2023-0163 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.