GHSA-5cv4-jp36-h3mw
MEDIUMGHSA-5cv4-jp36-h3mw is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in golang.org/x/net. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-5cv4-jp36-h3mw is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Go Net HTML parser is vulnerable to denial of service
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-5cv4-jp36-h3mw.
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-5cv4-jp36-h3mw 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 0 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
golang.org/x/netReal-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
In Go Net (golang.org/x/net) before verion 0.55.0, parsing arbitrary HTML can consume excessive CPU time, possibly leading to denial of service.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | golang.org/x/net | all versions | 0.55.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for golang.org/x/net. 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 golang.org/x/net to 0.55.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-5cv4-jp36-h3mw 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-5cv4-jp36-h3mw 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-5cv4-jp36-h3mw. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
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.
Red Hat rates this issue as Moderate with RH CVSS 6.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). A flaw was found in golang.org/x/net/html where parsing crafted HTML can consume excessive CPU time, leading to denial of service. Exploitation requires user interaction (a victim application parsing…
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-5cv4-jp36-h3mw in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-5cv4-jp36-h3mw across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.