CVE-2026-32256 — music-metadata
HIGHCVE-2026-32256 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-835 vulnerability in music-metadata. A fix is available for music-metadata — see the affected versions and patch details below.
music-metadata has an infinite loop vulnerability in ASF parser
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-2026-32256.
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-2026-32256 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 377,636 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.
music-metadatanpmDescription
Summary
music-metadata's ASF parser (parseExtensionObject() in lib/asf/AsfParser.ts:112-158) enters an infinite loop when a sub-object inside the ASF Header Extension Object has objectSize = 0.
Root Cause
When objectSize is 0:
remaining = 0 - 24 = -24tokenizer.ignore(-24)moves the read position backward by 24 bytesextensionSize -= 0(loop counter never decreases)while (extensionSize > 0)never exits- The same 24-byte header is re-read infinitely
This is the same pattern as CVE-2026-31808 (GHSA-5v7r-6r5c-r473) in file-type — strtok3's AbstractTokenizer.ignore() accepts negative values without validation.
Affected Methods
parseFile()— HANGS (FileTokenizer inherits vulnerable ignore())parseBuffer()— HANGS (BufferTokenizer inherits vulnerable ignore())parseStream()— NOT affected (ReadStreamTokenizer has own ignore() that throws RangeError)
Impact
A 100-byte crafted .asf file permanently hangs any application using parseFile() or parseBuffer(). music-metadata has 2.2M weekly npm downloads.
Suggested Fix
Validate objectSize >= minimumHeaderSize before calculating the payload. Or fix strtok3's AbstractTokenizer.ignore() to reject negative values.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | music-metadata | all versions | 11.12.3npm install music-metadata@11.12.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for music-metadata, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update music-metadata to 11.12.3 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-32256 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-2026-32256 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-32256. 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-2026-32256 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-32256 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.