GHSA-7c85-87cp-mr6g is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-674 vulnerability in llama-index. A fix is available for llama-index — see the affected versions and patch details below.
LlamaIndex Vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS)
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-7c85-87cp-mr6g.
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-7c85-87cp-mr6g 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
llama-indexReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability has been identified in the KnowledgeBaseWebReader class of the run-llama/llama_index project, affecting version ~ latest(v0.12.15). The vulnerability arises due to inappropriate secure coding measures, specifically the lack of proper implementation of the max_depth parameter in the get_article_urls function. This allows an attacker to exhaust Python's recursion limit through repeated function calls, leading to resource consumption and ultimately crashing the Python process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | llama-index | ≥ 0.12.15&&< 0.12.21 | 0.12.21pip install --upgrade 'llama-index==0.12.21' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for llama-index, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update llama-index to 0.12.21 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-7c85-87cp-mr6g 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-7c85-87cp-mr6g can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-7c85-87cp-mr6g. 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-7c85-87cp-mr6g in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-7c85-87cp-mr6g across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.