Apollo Router Query Planner Vulnerable to Excessive Resource Consumption via Optimization BypassGHSA-94hh-jmq8-2fgp
HIGHFix: apollographql/router@ab6675aGHSA-94hh-jmq8-2fgp is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in apollo-router. A fix is available for apollo-router — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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-94hh-jmq8-2fgp.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
apollo-router🦀apollo-routerReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
Summary
A vulnerability in Apollo Router allowed queries with deeply nested and reused named fragments to be prohibitively expensive to query plan, specifically due to internal optimizations being frequently bypassed. This could lead to excessive resource consumption and denial of service.
Details
The query planner includes an optimization that significantly speeds up planning for applicable GraphQL selections. However, queries with deeply nested and reused named fragments can generate many selections where this optimization does not apply, leading to significantly longer planning times. Because the query planner does not enforce a timeout, a small number of such queries can exhaust router's thread pool, rendering it inoperable.
Fix/Mitigation
- A new Query Optimization Limit metric has been added:
- This metric approximates the number of selections that cannot be skipped by the existing optimization.
- The metric is checked against a limit to prevent excessive computation.
Given the complexity of query planning optimizations, we will continue refining these solutions based on real-world performance and accuracy tests.
Patches
This has been remediated in apollo-router versions 1.61.2 and 2.1.1.
Workarounds
The only known workaround is "Safelisting" or "Safelisting with IDs only" per Safelisting with Persisted Queries - Apollo GraphQL Docs.
References
Acknowledgements
We appreciate the efforts of the security community in identifying and improving the performance and security of query planning mechanisms.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | apollo-router | all versions | 1.61.2cargo update -p apollo-router --precise 1.61.2 |
| 🦀crates.io | apollo-router | ≥ 2.0.0-alpha.0&&< 2.1.1 | 2.1.1cargo update -p apollo-router --precise 2.1.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for apollo-router, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update apollo-router to 1.61.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-94hh-jmq8-2fgp 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-94hh-jmq8-2fgp in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.