CVE-2026-45736 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.4) CWE-908 vulnerability in ws. A fix is available for ws — see the affected versions and patch details below.
ws: Uninitialized memory disclosure
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-45736.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-45736 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 380,526 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
wsnpmDescription
Impact
The websocket.close() implementation is vulnerable to uninitialized memory disclosure when a TypedArray is passed as the reason argument.
Proof of concept
import { deepStrictEqual } from 'node:assert';
import { WebSocket, WebSocketServer } from 'ws';
const wss = new WebSocketServer(
{ port: 0, skipUTF8Validation: true },
function () {
const { port } = wss.address();
const ws = new WebSocket(`ws://localhost:${port}`, {
skipUTF8Validation: true
});
ws.on('close', function (code, reason) {
deepStrictEqual(reason, Buffer.alloc(80));
});
}
);
wss.on('connection', function (ws) {
ws.close(1000, new Float32Array(20));
});
Patches
The vulnerability was fixed in [email protected] (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/c0327ec15a54d701eb6ccefaa8bef328cfc03086).
Credits
Credit for the private and responsible disclosure of this issue goes to Nikita Skovoroda.
Remarks
Although the calculated CVSS severity is medium, the actual severity is believed to be low, as the flaw is only exploitable through misuse that is unlikely in practice.
Resources
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | ws | ≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.20.1 | 8.20.1npm install ws@8.20.1 |
Affected Products
wsws_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ws, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ws to 8.20.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-45736 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.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This Important vulnerability in the `ws` WebSocket library for Node.js could lead to sensitive information disclosure. The flaw occurs when a `TypedArray` is specifically provided as the `reason` argument to the `websocket.close()` function, potentially exposing uninitialized memory. Red Hat products utilizing this…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Cryostat 4 on RHEL 9 | cryostat/cryostat-openshift-console-plugin-rhel9:4.2.0-13 | RHSA-2026:48151 |
| Red Hat AMQ Broker 7.13.6 | ws | RHSA-2026:66545 |
| Red Hat AMQ Broker 7.14.1 | ws | RHSA-2026:66488 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | rh-podman-desktop-0:1.1.2-1.el10_2 | RHSA-2026:57590 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 | ansible-automation-platform-26/gateway-rhel9:1782761510 | RHSA-2026:34374 |
| Red Hat Developer Hub 1.10 | rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1783448184 | RHSA-2026:36754 |
| Red Hat Developer Hub 1.9 | rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1782761244 | RHSA-2026:33574 |
| Red Hat Discovery 2 | discovery/discovery-ui-rhel9:1782166952 | RHSA-2026:29197 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-45736 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.