MariaDB Connector/Node.js exposes uninitialized process memory through malformed GeoJSON parametersGHSA-48qf-xh34-q73r
HIGHFix: mariadb-corporation/mariadb-connector-nodejs@2314c03GHSA-48qf-xh34-q73r is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in mariadb. A fix is available for mariadb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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 GHSA-48qf-xh34-q73r.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-48qf-xh34-q73r by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 394,803 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.
mariadbnpmDescription
Description
When encoding a GeoJSON Polygon or MultiPolygon parameter for the binary protocol, the connector sized its output buffer from the length property of each ring, then wrote each ring only if it was a real array. The two loops disagreed: any non-array ring carrying a numeric length (a string, or an object such as {"length": 4000}) still reserved 4 + 16 * length bytes, but wrote none of them. The buffer came from Buffer.allocUnsafe() and was returned in full regardless of how far the write position had advanced, so every reserved-but-unwritten byte was uninitialized Node.js heap.
The sibling LineString case handled this correctly, aborting with null on the first malformed point, so no reserved byte could escape unwritten.
The only gate on this path is value.type naming a GeoJSON type, so any object shaped like {"type": "Polygon", ...} reached the encoder.
Impact
An application that passes an attacker-influenced object as a parameter to execute() or batch() writes uninitialized process memory into the database, where it is readable by anyone who can read that row and persists into backups and replicas. Applications accepting GeoJSON for map or location features are the natural case, as the attacker controls coordinates directly.
The disclosed memory is not scoped to the requesting user: in a shared Node.js process the heap may hold other users' request and response bodies, session tokens and cookies, database credentials and TLS key material. The leak is silent — the insert succeeds and the column simply holds more bytes than it should.
No non-default connector option and no particular server configuration are required. query() is not affected: the text encoder builds geometry as strings rather than through Buffer.allocUnsafe().
Resolution
Both the Polygon and MultiPolygon encoders now reject a non-array ring before reserving space for it, so no byte of the allocation can be left uninitialized by the writing loop, matching the existing LineString behaviour.
Workarounds Validate that GeoJSON coordinates are properly nested arrays of numbers before passing the object as a parameter, or use query(), until upgraded.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | mariadb | all versions | 3.2.5npm install mariadb@3.2.5 |
| 📦npm | mariadb | ≥ 3.3.0&&< 3.3.4 | 3.3.4npm install mariadb@3.3.4 |
| 📦npm | mariadb | ≥ 3.4.0&&< 3.4.7 | 3.4.7npm install mariadb@3.4.7 |
| 📦npm | mariadb | ≥ 3.5.0-rc.0&&< 3.5.4 | 3.5.4npm install mariadb@3.5.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mariadb, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update mariadb to 3.2.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-48qf-xh34-q73r 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-48qf-xh34-q73r in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.