GHSA-58j9-j2fj-v8f4
HIGHSurrealDB vulnerable to Uncontrolled CPU Consumption via WebSocket Interface
Blast Radius
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Description
SurrealDB depends on the tungstenite and tokio-tungstenite crates used by the axum crate, which handles connections to the SurrealDB WebSocket interface. On versions before 0.20.1, the tungstenite crate presented an issue which allowed the parsing of HTTP headers during the client handshake to continuously consume high CPU when the headers were very long. All affected crates have been updated in SurrealDB version 1.1.0.
From the original advisory for CVE-2023-43669: "The Tungstenite crate through 0.20.0 for Rust allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (minutes of CPU consumption) via an excessive length of an HTTP header in a client handshake. The length affects both how many times a parse is attempted (e.g., thousands of times) and the average amount of data for each parse attempt (e.g., millions of bytes)."
Impact
A remote unauthenticated attacker may cause a SurrealDB server that exposes its WebSocket interface to consume high CPU by sending an HTTP request with a very long header to the WebSocket interface, potentially leading to denial of service.
Patches
- Version 1.1.0 and later are not affected by this issue.
Workarounds
Users unable to update may be able to limit access to the WebSocket interface (i.e. the /rpc endpoint) via reverse proxy if not in use or only used by a limited number of trusted clients. Alternatively, a reverse proxy may be used to strip or truncate request headers exceeding a reasonable length before reaching the SurrealDB server.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | all versions | 1.1.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for surrealdb. 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 surrealdb to 1.1.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-58j9-j2fj-v8f4 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-58j9-j2fj-v8f4 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-58j9-j2fj-v8f4. 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-58j9-j2fj-v8f4 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-58j9-j2fj-v8f4 across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.