GHSA-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-284 vulnerability in apollo-router. A fix is available for apollo-router — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apollo Router Improperly Enforces Renamed Access Control Directives
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-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f.
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-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f 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 377,238 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
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
Summary
A vulnerability in Apollo Router allowed for unauthorized access to protected data through schema elements with access control directives (@authenticated, @requiresScopes, and @policy) that were renamed via @link imports. Router did not enforce renamed access control directives on schema elements (e.g. fields and types), allowing queries to bypass those element-level access controls.
Details
Apollo Federation allows users to specify access control directives (@authenticated, @requiresScopes, and @policy](https://www.apollographql.com/docs/graphos/routing/security/authorization#authorization-directives)) to protect schema data access at the element level. These directives can optionally be renamed via the imports argument to the @link directive, which can be useful if their default names match an existing user-defined directive in their subgraph schema. However, Apollo Router's access control logic ignored the imports argument, and would accordingly ignore access control directives that were renamed in this way.
Who Is Impacted
This vulnerability impacts Apollo Router customers defining @authenticated, @requiresScopes, or @policy directives on schema elements that were renamed via @link imports are impacted.
Scope of Impact
The vulnerability could allow a malicious actor to craft a query that can bypass access control requirements on schema elements protected by renamed access control directives.
Patches
This vulnerability has been fixed in Apollo Router by updating the access control logic to handle the imports argument in @link directives. You will need to update Router to one of the following versions:
- 1.61.12+
- 2.8.1+
Workarounds
- If you are not immediately updating Router to a patched version, you should remove any renames of access control directives in the
importsargument to the@linkdirective. - Customers not using Apollo Router with renamed access control directives (
@authenticated,@requiresScopes, and@policy) are not affected and do not need to take action.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | apollo-router | all versions | 1.61.12cargo update -p apollo-router --precise 1.61.12 |
| 🦀crates.io | apollo-router | ≥ 2.0.0-alpha.0&&< 2.8.1 | 2.8.1cargo update -p apollo-router --precise 2.8.1 |
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 1.61.12 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f 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-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f. 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-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-g8jh-vg5j-4h3f across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.