GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7 — protobuf
Fix: protocolbuffers/protobuf#25239GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7 is a CWE-674 vulnerability in protobuf. A fix is available for protobuf — see the affected versions and patch details below.
protobuf affected by a JSON recursion depth bypass
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-7gcm-g887-7qv7.
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.
Real-World Exposure
protobuf🐍protobufReal-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 exists in google.protobuf.json_format.ParseDict() in Python, where the max_recursion_depth limit can be bypassed when parsing nested google.protobuf.Any messages.
Due to missing recursion depth accounting inside the internal Any-handling logic, an attacker can supply deeply nested Any structures that bypass the intended recursion limit, eventually exhausting Python’s recursion stack and causing a RecursionError.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | protobuf | ≥ 6.30.0rc1&&< 6.33.5 | 6.33.5pip install --upgrade 'protobuf==6.33.5' |
| 🐍PyPI | protobuf | all versions | 5.29.6pip install --upgrade 'protobuf==5.29.6' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for protobuf, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update protobuf to 6.33.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7 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-7gcm-g887-7qv7 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7. 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.
This vulnerability is rated Important for Red Hat products. The flaw in `protobuf` allows a remote attacker to trigger a denial-of-service by providing specially crafted, deeply nested `google.protobuf.Any` messages to the `google.protobuf.json_format.ParseDict()` function. This bypasses the intended recursion depth…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.5 for RHEL 8 | python3.12-protobuf-0:5.29.6-1.el8ap | RHSA-2026:3959 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 for RHEL 9 | python3.12-protobuf-0:5.29.6-1.el9ap | RHSA-2026:3958 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | protobuf-0:3.19.6-15.el10_1 | RHSA-2026:3094 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support | protobuf-0:3.19.6-11.el10_0.1 | RHSA-2026:3218 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | protobuf-0:3.14.0-17.el9_7 | RHSA-2026:3095 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0 Update Services for SAP Solutions | protobuf-0:3.14.0-9.el9_0.1 | RHSA-2026:3097 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Update Services for SAP Solutions | protobuf-0:3.14.0-13.el9_2.1 | RHSA-2026:3220 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Extended Update Support | protobuf-0:3.14.0-13.el9_4.1 | RHSA-2026:3059 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.