CVE-2023-4316 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-1333 vulnerability in zod. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for zod — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Zod 3.22.2 - Regular expression Denial of Service
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-2023-4316.
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
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.
zodnpmDescription
Zod in versions 3.21.0 up to and including 3.22.3 allows an attacker to perform a denial of service while validating emails.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | zod | all versions | 3.22.3npm install zod@3.22.3 |
Affected Products
zodzodResearch 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 zod, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update zod to 3.22.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-4316 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-2023-4316 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.