CVE-2023-37279 — faktory
HIGHCVE-2023-37279 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in github.com/contribsys/faktory. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for github.com/contribsys/faktory — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Faktory Web Dashboard can lead to denial of service(DOS) via malicious user input
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-2023-37279.
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
github.com/contribsys/faktoryReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
Faktory web dashboard can suffer from denial of service by a crafted malicious url query param days.
Details
The vulnerability is related to how the backend reads the days URL query parameter in the Faktory web dashboard. The value is used directly without any checks to create a string slice. If a very large value is provided, the backend server ends up using a significant amount of memory and causing it to crash.
PoC
To reproduce this vulnerability, please follow these steps:
Start the Faktory Docker and limit memory usage to 512 megabytes for better demonstration:
$ docker run --rm -it -m 512m \
-p 127.0.0.1:7419:7419 \
-p 127.0.0.1:7420:7420 \
contribsys/faktory:latest
Send the following request. The Faktory server will exit after a few seconds due to out of memory:
$ curl 'http://localhost:7420/?days=922337'
Impact
Server Availability: The vulnerability can crash the Faktory server, affecting its availability. Denial of Service Risk: Given that the Faktory web dashboard does not require authorization, any entity with internet access to the dashboard could potentially exploit this vulnerability. This unchecked access opens up the potential for a Denial of Service (DoS) attack, which could disrupt service availability without any conditional barriers to the attacker.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/contribsys/faktory | all versions | 1.8.0go get github.com/contribsys/faktory@v1.8.0 |
Affected Products
faktorycontribsysResearch 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 github.com/contribsys/faktory, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/contribsys/faktory to 1.8.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-37279 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-37279 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.