How severe is GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j?

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j has a CVSS score of 7.5/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j?

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j affects the following packages: multer (npm), multer (npm). Ecosystems affected: npm.

How do I fix GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j?

Update multer to 2.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j in my npm dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for multer, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Is GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j?

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.5%, placing it in the 40th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j?

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j is classified as Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j was published on June 17, 2026 and was last updated on June 17, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

📦

📦 npm

Not in CISA KEV

HIGH severity

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j — multer

HIGH

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in multer. A fix is available for multer — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Multer vulnerable to Denial of Service via deeply nested field names

Also known asCVE-2026-5079

Published

Jun 17, 2026

Updated

Jun 17, 2026

Affected

2 pkgs

Patched

2 / 2

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Sep 26, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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-72gw-mp4g-v24j.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.5%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs40th percentile — riskier than 40% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.

Where this sits among everything scored

Of 379,842 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.

Real-World Exposure

2 pkgs affected

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.

7Kother npm packages depend on this — each one inherits the vulnerability until it's patched upstream

multernpm

24.6Mdownloads / week

Description

Impact: multer versions 1.0.0 through 2.1.1 and 3.0.0-alpha.1 are vulnerable to a Denial of Service via deeply nested field names in multipart form data. The append-field dependency parses bracket notation in field names with no limit on nesting depth, allowing an attacker to force allocation of deeply nested object structures that consume CPU and memory. A single HTTP request with a crafted multipart body is sufficient to exploit this.

Patches: Users should upgrade to multer 2.2.0 (2.x line) or 3.0.0-alpha.2 (3.x prerelease) and configure the new limits.fieldNestingDepth option to the minimum depth their application requires.

Workarounds: Set limits.fields to a reasonable value to reduce the number of fields an attacker can send per request. This does not fully mitigate the issue but limits the impact.

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
📦npm	`multer`	≥ 1.0.0&&< 2.2.0	2.2.0`npm install multer@2.2.0`
📦npm	`multer`	≥ 3.0.0-alpha.1&&< 3.0.0-alpha.2	3.0.0-alpha.2`npm install multer@3.0.0-alpha.2`

Affected Products

1 product · 2 configurations

Application

multerexpressjs

≥ 1.0.0 && < 2.2.0

1 version

3.0.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for multer, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update multer to 2.2.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

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 HatImportant

This is an Important denial of service vulnerability in Multer, a Node.js middleware for handling multipart/form-data. An attacker can exploit this flaw by sending a crafted HTTP request with deeply nested field names, leading to excessive resource consumption and service unavailability. This is particularly relevant…

Workaround published by Red Hat

To reduce the impact of this denial of service vulnerability, configure the `limits.fields` option within your `multer` instance to a reasonable maximum value. This action restricts the number of fields processed from multipart form data, thereby limiting the resources an attacker can consume. This partial mitigation requires an application restart to take effect and does not fully prevent the vulnerability.

Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-72gw-mp4g-v24j (CC BY 4.0)

Product	Fixed in	Advisory
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.1	`ansible-automation-platform/automation-portal:1788775748`	RHSA-2026:65118
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.2	`ansible-automation-platform/bootc-automation-portal-rhel9:1788943531`	RHSA-2026:66003
Red Hat Developer Hub 1.10	`rhdh/red-hat-developer-hub-backstage-plugin-lightspeed-backend:1785332487`	RHSA-2026:48126
Red Hat Developer Hub 1.10	`rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1785411652`	RHSA-2026:49642
Red Hat Developer Hub 1.9	`rhdh/rhdh-hub-rhel9:1785972843`	RHSA-2026:52768

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact Multer is vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) via deeply nested field names in multipart form data. The `append-field` dependency parses bracket notation in field names (e.g., `a[b][c]`) with no limit on nesting depth, allowing an attacker to force allocation of deeply nested object structures that consume CPU and memory. A single HTTP request with a crafted multipart body is sufficient to exploit this. ### Patches Users should upgrade to `2.2.0` and configure `limits.fieldNestingDepth` to the minimum depth their application requires. ### Workarounds Set `limits.fields` to