GHSA-6q6q-88xp-6f2r is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in gopkg.in/yaml.v2. A fix is available for gopkg.in/yaml.v2 — see the affected versions and patch details below.
yaml package for Go can consume excessive amounts of CPU or memory
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-6q6q-88xp-6f2r.
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-6q6q-88xp-6f2r 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 377,166 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
gopkg.in/yaml.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
Parsing malicious or large YAML documents can consume excessive amounts of CPU or memory
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | gopkg.in/yaml.v2 | all versions | 2.2.4go get gopkg.in/yaml.v2@v2.2.4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for gopkg.in/yaml.v2, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update gopkg.in/yaml.v2 to 2.2.4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6q6q-88xp-6f2r 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-6q6q-88xp-6f2r can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-6q6q-88xp-6f2r. 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.
RHC package for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 mark as Low severity as we do ship the affected code but it's not easily exposed because YAML files are not parsed by RHC.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | container-tools:4.0-8090020230828093056.e7857ab1 | RHSA-2023:6938 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | container-tools:rhel8-8090020230825121312.e7857ab1 | RHSA-2023:6939 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | rhc-1:0.2.5-1.el8_10 | RHSA-2024:10784 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | toolbox-0:0.0.99.4-6.el9_3 | RHSA-2023:6346 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | rhc-1:0.2.5-1.el9_5 | RHSA-2024:10759 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Extended Update Support | toolbox-0:0.0.99.4-1.el9_2 | RHSA-2024:4443 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.10 | openshift4/ose-configmap-reloader:v4.10.0-202302072301.p0.g1e5a18e.assembly.stream | RHSA-2023:0698 |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.10 | openshift4/ose-telemeter:v4.10.0-202302201054.p0.g3b5eb87.assembly.stream | RHSA-2023:0899 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-6q6q-88xp-6f2r in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-6q6q-88xp-6f2r across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.