GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-863 vulnerability in github.com/juju/juju. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Juju has a resource poisoning vulnerability
Real-World Exposure
github.com/juju/jujuReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
Any authenticated user, machine or controller under a Juju controller can modify the resources of an application within the entire controller.
This one is very straightforward to just read in the code:
Step 1: The authorisation mechanism for the resource handler is defined here. One is only required to have been authed as either a user, machine or controller to pass this check. One requires no permissions on the controller nor does one need any further permissions on the models themselves.
This handler is available under the following path format /:modeluuid/applications/:application/resources/:resources. See here. The handler defines no authorizer as supported by the handler struct here.
One needs to know the following three bits of information to poison the resource cache on the controller:
- model uuid
- application name in the model
- resource name in the model
Given that a lot of deployments use the charm name for applications and the resources for charms are published on charm hub, this is a very low bar to meet, only requiring the model uuid.
Step 2: If one passes the very basic authz check of step 1, one is now allowed free rein for 'PUT' and 'GET' methods to the handler. This security report will only focus on 'PUT' as it is the most interesting. The 'PUT' handler will gladly take whatever is uploaded to it as long as it has the same file extension defined by the resource.
If the resource already exists in the controller's cache, it will be uploaded with whatever is supplied by the upload, see here and here.
That is it. One can successfully poison the resource cache for any model in the controller.
PoC
A proof of concept has not been done for this because it is so obvious from the code read that it is not deemed necessary.
A realistic example of how this can be used: if there is a compromised workload in Juju that has machine credentials, then one can modify the OCI resources for any other model in the controller. For example, if the controller was running a k8s vault, one could change the docker image in use to a trojan horse version that allows obtaining root access to all the vault secrets.
Once this poison has been performed, the attacker can then leverage the vault secrets to go other places.
Impact
Any charm deployment where a resource could be modified to inject security vulnerabilities into another workload. The most obvious is OCI containers as one gets execution escalation, but if a file resource had security controls in it, this could also be leveraged. For the file case, this would need to be examined on a case-by-case basis.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/juju/juju | all versions | 0.0.0-20260120044552-26ff93c903d5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/juju/juju. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/juju/juju to 0.0.0-20260120044552-26ff93c903d5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-245v-p8fj-vwm2 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.