How severe is GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m?

GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m has a CVSS score of 8.4/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m?

GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m affects the following packages: github.com/edgelesssys/contrast (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m?

Update github.com/edgelesssys/contrast to 1.18.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/edgelesssys/contrast. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m?

O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

When was GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m was published on March 26, 2026 and was last updated on April 2, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹 Go

GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m

HIGH

Contrast BadAML injection allows arbitrary code execution

Also known asGO-2026-4863

Published

Mar 26, 2026

Updated

Apr 2, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🐹github.com/edgelesssys/contrast

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

BadAML

BadAML is an AML injection attack that exploits the ACPI interface and allows arbitrary code execution in a confidential VM. The attack was first published in 2024:

Impact

An attacker with control over the host (which is assumed in the attacker model of Contrast) can execute malicious AML code to gain arbitrary code execution within the confidential guest.

AML is byte code embedded in ACPI tables that are passed from the host (QEMU) to the guest firmware (OVMF), and then passed from OVMF to the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel has an interpreter that executes the AML code. An attacker can craft a table with malicious AML code and the kernel will execute it. AML is Turing-complete and the interpreter has access to the full guest memory, including private pages.

See the paper for a detailed description and background of the attack.

Note that this is not a vulnerability specific to Contrast, but rather a generic vulnerability in Confidential Computing setups that use the ACPI interface.

Affected platforms

This issue affects the SNP platforms supported by Contrast: Metal-QEMU-SNP and Metal-QEMU-SNP-GPU. Users on these platforms should switch to the fixed Contrast version immediately.

Metal-QEMU-TDX isn't affected, as the content of the ACPI tables is covered by the runtime measurements (measured into RTMR 0 by OVMF) on Intel TDX.

Patches

A sandbox similar to the one proposed in the paper has been implemented in the Linux kernel used by Contrast. The sandbox denies access to private memory pages by doing a page table lookup on every read/write by the AML interpreter.

This mitigates the attack completely: While an attacker can still run AML code, the code cannot read or modify private memory pages. Shared pages are readable/writable by the host hypervisor anyway.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`github.com/edgelesssys/contrast`	all versions	1.18.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/edgelesssys/contrast. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update github.com/edgelesssys/contrast to 1.18.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

# BadAML BadAML is an AML injection attack that exploits the ACPI interface and allows arbitrary code execution in a confidential VM. The attack was first published in 2024: - <https://blackhat.com/eu-24/briefings/schedule/#aml-injection-attacks-on-confidential-vms-42723> - <https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3719027.3765123> ## Impact An attacker with control over the host (which is assumed in the attacker model of Contrast) can execute malicious AML code to gain arbitrary code execution within the confidential guest. AML is byte code embedded in ACPI tables that are passed from the host

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m in your dependencies?

O3 detects GHSA-g9ww-x58f-9g6m across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works