How severe is CVE-2026-48712?

CVE-2026-48712 has a CVSS score of 7.5/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2026-48712?

CVE-2026-48712 affects the following packages: protobufjs (npm), protobufjs (npm). Ecosystems affected: npm.

How do I fix CVE-2026-48712?

Update protobufjs to 7.6.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-48712 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2026-48712 in my npm dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for protobufjs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate CVE-2026-48712 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.

Is CVE-2026-48712 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2026-48712 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2026-48712?

CVE-2026-48712 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.5%, placing it in the 40th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2026-48712?

CVE-2026-48712 is classified as CWE-674 (CWE-674). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2026-48712 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2026-48712 was published on June 22, 2026 and was last updated on October 28, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

📦

📦 npm

Not in CISA KEV

HIGH severity

CVE-2026-48712 — protobufjs

HIGH

CVE-2026-48712 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-674 vulnerability in protobufjs. A fix is available for protobufjs — see the affected versions and patch details below.

protobufjs: Denial of service through unbounded Any expansion during JSON conversion

Also known asGHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6

Published

Jun 22, 2026

Updated

Oct 28, 2026

Affected

2 pkgs

Patched

2 / 2

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Nov 9, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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-2026-48712.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.5%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs40th percentile — riskier than 40% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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

2 pkgs affected

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.

6Kother npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream

protobufjsnpm

123.5Mdownloads / week

Description

Summary

protobufjs could recurse without a depth limit while converting decoded messages to plain objects or JSON. This affected generated toObject() conversion and the custom google.protobuf.Any JSON conversion path.

A crafted protobuf binary payload containing deeply nested Any values could cause the JavaScript call stack to be exhausted during conversion to JSON.

Impact

An attacker who can provide protobuf binary data decoded by an application may be able to crash the process or otherwise cause message conversion to fail with a stack overflow.

This affects applications that decode untrusted protobuf input containing google.protobuf.Any values and then convert decoded messages to JSON or plain objects with JSON conversion enabled, for example through JSON.stringify(message), Message#toJSON(), or Type.toObject(message, { json: true }).

Applications that only decode and re-encode protobuf binary data without converting decoded messages to JSON are not directly affected by this issue.

Preconditions

The application must decode protobuf binary data influenced by an attacker.
The application schema must include google.protobuf.Any, and the referenced type_url must resolve to a message type in the loaded protobuf root.
The application must convert the decoded message to JSON or a plain object through an affected conversion path.
The crafted input must contain deeply nested Any values that are expanded during conversion.

Workarounds

Avoid converting untrusted protobuf messages containing google.protobuf.Any values to JSON with affected versions. If immediate upgrade is not possible, reject or limit messages with deeply nested Any payloads at an outer protocol boundary where feasible, avoid JSON conversion of untrusted Any values, or isolate message conversion in a process that can be safely restarted.

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
📦npm	`protobufjs`	all versions	7.6.1`npm install protobufjs@7.6.1`
📦npm	`protobufjs`	≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.4.1	8.4.1`npm install protobufjs@8.4.1`

Affected Products

1 product · 2 configurations

Application

protobufjsprotobufjs_project

≥ 8.0.0 && < 8.4.1

range

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for protobufjs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update protobufjs to 7.6.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-48712 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.

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.

Red HatModerate

Red Hat rates this issue as having Low impact for Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI bootc images. Although protobufjs is present as a transitive dependency, the vulnerable parsing path is not exercised in normal product operation.

Workaround published by Red Hat

No specific mitigation required for unaffected runtime paths.

Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-48712 (CC BY 4.0)

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Red Hat Developer Hub 1.9	`rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1785972843`	RHSA-2026:52768
Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4	`rhoai/odh-dashboard-rhel9:1787347991`	RHSA-2026:60520
Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.4	`rhoai/odh-mod-arch-eval-hub-rhel9:1791861214`	RHSA-2026:84734

Frequently Asked Questions

## Summary protobufjs could recurse without a depth limit while converting decoded messages to plain objects or JSON. This affected generated `toObject()` conversion and the custom `google.protobuf.Any` JSON conversion path. A crafted protobuf binary payload containing deeply nested `Any` values could cause the JavaScript call stack to be exhausted during conversion to JSON. ## Impact An attacker who can provide protobuf binary data decoded by an application may be able to crash the process or otherwise cause message conversion to fail with a stack overflow. This affects applications that