go-viper's mapstructure May Leak Sensitive Information in Logs When Processing Malformed DataGHSA-2464-8j7c-4cjm
MEDIUMFix: go-viper/mapstructure@742921cGHSA-2464-8j7c-4cjm is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-209 vulnerability in github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2. A fix is available for github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-2464-8j7c-4cjm.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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
github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2Real-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
Use of this library in a security-critical context may result in leaking sensitive information, if used to process sensitive fields.
Details
OpenBao (and presumably HashiCorp Vault) have surfaced error messages from mapstructure as follows:
_, _, err := d.getPrimitive(field, schema)
if err != nil {
return fmt.Errorf("error converting input for field %q: %w", field, err)
}
where this calls mapstructure.WeakDecode(...): https://github.com/openbao/openbao/blob/98c3a59c040efca724353ca46ca79bd5cdbab920/sdk/framework/field_data.go#L181-L193
func (d *FieldData) getPrimitive(k string, schema *FieldSchema) (interface{}, bool, error) {
raw, ok := d.Raw[k]
if !ok {
return nil, false, nil
}
switch t := schema.Type; t {
case TypeBool:
var result bool
if err := mapstructure.WeakDecode(raw, &result); err != nil {
return nil, false, err
}
return result, true, nil
Notably, WeakDecode(...) eventually calls one of the decode helpers, which surfaces the original value via strconv helpers:
& more. These are different code paths than are fixed in the previous iteration at https://github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/security/advisories/GHSA-fv92-fjc5-jj9h.
PoC
To reproduce with OpenBao:
$ podman run --pull=always -p 8300:8300 openbao/openbao:latest server -dev -dev-root-token-id=root -dev-listen-address=0.0.0.0:8300
and in a new tab:
$ BAO_TOKEN=root BAO_ADDR=http://localhost:8300 bao auth enable userpass
Success! Enabled userpass auth method at: userpass/
$ curl -X PUT -H "X-Vault-Request: true" -H "X-Vault-Token: root" -d '{"ttl":"asdf"}' "http://localhost:8200/v1/auth/userpass/users/asdf"
--> server logs:
2025-06-25T21:32:25.101-0500 [ERROR] core: failed to run existence check: error="error converting input for field \"ttl\": time: invalid duration \"asdf\""
Impact
This is an information disclosure bug with little mitigation. See https://discuss.hashicorp.com/t/hcsec-2025-09-vault-may-expose-sensitive-information-in-error-logs-when-processing-malformed-data-with-the-kv-v2-plugin/74717 for a previous version. That version was fixed, but this is in the second part of that error message (starting at '' expected a map, got 'string' -- when the field type is string and a map is provided, we see the above information leak -- the previous example had a map type field with a string value provided).
This was rated 4.5 Medium by HashiCorp in the past iteration.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2 | all versions | 2.4.0go get github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2@v2.4.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/go-viper/mapstructure/v2 to 2.4.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-2464-8j7c-4cjm is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Assume what was exposed is already known: rotate any credential, token or key that the affected component could return, restrict the endpoint to callers that genuinely need it, and strip sensitive fields from responses and error output at the boundary rather than relying on the client not to read them.
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.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-2464-8j7c-4cjm (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
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