GHSA-f67q-wr6w-23jq is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-248 vulnerability in boa_engine. A fix is available for boa_engine — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Boa has an uncaught exception when transitioning the state of `AsyncGenerator` objects
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-f67q-wr6w-23jq.
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-f67q-wr6w-23jq 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 377,333 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
boa_engineReal-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
A wrong assumption made when handling ECMAScript's AsyncGenerator operations can cause an uncaught exception on certain scripts.
Details
Boa's implementation of AsyncGenerator makes the assumption that the state of an AsyncGenerator object cannot change while resolving a promise created by methods of AsyncGenerator such as %AsyncGeneratorPrototype%.next, %AsyncGeneratorPrototype%.return, or %AsyncGeneratorPrototype%.throw.
However, a carefully constructed code could trigger a state transition from a getter method for the promise's then property, which causes the engine to fail an assertion of this assumption, causing an uncaught exception. This could be used to create a Denial Of Service attack in applications that run arbitrary ECMAScript code provided by an external user.
Patches
Version 0.19.0 is patched to correctly handle this case.
Workarounds
Users unable to upgrade to the patched version would want to use std::panic::catch_unwind to ensure any exceptions caused by the engine don't impact the availability of the main application.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | boa_engine | ≥ 0.16&&< 0.19.0 | 0.19.0cargo update -p boa_engine --precise 0.19.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for boa_engine, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update boa_engine to 0.19.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-f67q-wr6w-23jq 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-f67q-wr6w-23jq can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-f67q-wr6w-23jq. 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-f67q-wr6w-23jq in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-f67q-wr6w-23jq across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.