GHSA-hmgw-9jrg-hf2m
HIGHDirectus crashes on invalid WebSocket message
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.
Blast Radius
Weekly download volume for affected packages — a proxy for how broadly this vulnerability is deployed.
directusnpmDescription
Summary
It seems that any Directus installation that has websockets enabled can be crashed if the websocket server receives an invalid frame. This could probably be posted as an issue and I might even be able to put together a pull request for a fix (if only I had some extra time...), but I decided to instead post as a vulnerability just for the maintainers, since this seemingly can be used to crash any live Directus server if websockets are enabled, so public disclosure is not a good idea until the issue is fixed.
Details
The fix for this seems quite simple; the websocket server just needs to properly catch the error instead of crashing the server. See for example: https://github.com/websockets/ws/issues/2098
PoC
- Start a fresh Directus server (using for example the compose file here: https://docs.directus.io/self-hosted/docker-guide.html). Enable websockets by setting
WEBSOCKETS_ENABLED: 'true'environment variable. - run a separate node app somewhere else to send an invalid frame to the server:
const WebSocket = require("ws");
const websocket = new WebSocket("ws://0.0.0.0:8055/websocket");
websocket.on("open", function () {
const chunk = Buffer.from("a180", "hex");
websocket._socket.write(chunk);
});
Impact
The server crashes with an error: RangeError: Invalid WebSocket frame: RSV2 and RSV3 must be clear. Server needs to be manually restarted to get back online (if there's no recovery mechanism in place, as there often isn't with simple node servers). This was confirmed on a local server, and additionally I was able to crash our staging server with the same code, just pointing to our staging Directus server running at fly.io. It seems to also crash servers running in the directus.cloud service. I created https://websocket-test.directus.app/, pointed the above script to the websocket url of that instance and the server does crash for a while. It seems that in there there's a mechanism for bringing the server back up quite fast, but it would be quite trivial for anyone to DoS any server running in directus.cloud by just spamming these invalid frames to the server.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | directus | ≥ 10.4.0&&< 10.6.2 | 10.6.2 |
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 directus. 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 directus to 10.6.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-hmgw-9jrg-hf2m 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-hmgw-9jrg-hf2m 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-hmgw-9jrg-hf2m. 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-hmgw-9jrg-hf2m in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-hmgw-9jrg-hf2m across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.