GHSA-f56g-chqp-22m9 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Use After Free vulnerability in libpulse-binding. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for libpulse-binding — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Use after free in libpulse-binding
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-f56g-chqp-22m9 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
libpulse-bindingReal-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
Overview
Version 2.5.0 of the libpulse-binding Rust crate, released on the 22nd of December 2018, fixed a potential use-after-free issue with property list iteration due to a lack of a lifetime constraint tying the lifetime of a proplist::Iterator to the Proplist object for which it was created. This made it possible for users, without experiencing a compiler error/warning, to destroy the Proplist object before the iterator, thus destroying the underlying C object the iterator works upon, before the iterator may be finished with it.
This advisory is being written retrospectively, having previously only been noted in the changelog. No CVE assignment was sought.
This impacts all versions of the crate before 2.5.0 back to 1.0.5. Before version 1.0.5 the function that produces the iterator was broken to the point of being useless.
Patches
Users are required to update to version 2.5.0 or newer.
Versions older than 2.5.0 have been yanked from crates.io as of the 22nd of October 2020.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | libpulse-binding | ≥ 1.0.5&&< 2.5.0 | 2.5.0cargo update -p libpulse-binding --precise 2.5.0 |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for libpulse-binding, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update libpulse-binding to 2.5.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-f56g-chqp-22m9 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-f56g-chqp-22m9 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-f56g-chqp-22m9. 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-f56g-chqp-22m9 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-f56g-chqp-22m9 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.