GHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j — tuf
MEDIUMGHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in tuf. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for tuf — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Client Denial of Service on TUF
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
GHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j 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 376,715 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
tufReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
An attacker who can gain file access to the repository and modify metadata files may cause a denial of service to clients by creating many invalid signatures on a metadata file. Having a large number of signatures to verify will delay the moment when the client will determine the signature is not valid. This delay may be for at least a few minutes, but possibly could be longer especially if multiple files are impacted.
The tuf maintainers would like to thank Erik MacLean of Analog Devices, Inc. for reporting this issue.
Patches
No fix exists for this issue.
Workarounds
No workarounds are known for this issue.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | tuf | ≥ 0.7.2&&< 0.12.2 | 0.12.2pip install --upgrade 'tuf==0.12.2' |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for tuf, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update tuf to 0.12.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j 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 GHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j. 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-2828-9vh6-9m6j in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-2828-9vh6-9m6j across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.