quic-go Has Panic in Path Probe Loss Recovery HandlingGHSA-j972-j939-p2v3
HIGHFix: quic-go/quic-go@b90058aGHSA-j972-j939-p2v3 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-248 vulnerability in github.com/quic-go/quic-go. A fix is available for github.com/quic-go/quic-go — see the affected versions and patch details below.
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-j972-j939-p2v3.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
github.com/quic-go/quic-goReal-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
Impact
The loss recovery logic for path probe packets that was added in the v0.50.0 release can be used to trigger a nil-pointer dereference by a malicious QUIC client.
In order to do so, the attacker first sends valid QUIC packets from different remote addresses (thereby triggering the newly added path validation logic: the server sends path probe packets), and then sending ACKs for packets received from the server specifically crafted to trigger the nil-pointer dereference.
Patches
v0.50.1 contains a patch that fixes the vulnerability.
This release contains a test that generates random sequences of sent packets (both regular and path probe packets), that was used to verify that the patch actually covers all corner cases.
Workarounds
No.
References
This issue has been reported publicly, but without any context, in https://github.com/quic-go/quic-go/issues/4981.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/quic-go/quic-go | ≥ 0.50.0&&< 0.50.1 | 0.50.1go get github.com/quic-go/quic-go@v0.50.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/quic-go/quic-go, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/quic-go/quic-go to 0.50.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-j972-j939-p2v3 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.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
The severity of this vulnerability is rated Moderate, as it does not impact system availability. The effects are confined to the application layer, without compromising the underlying system stability.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-j972-j939-p2v3 (CC BY 4.0)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-j972-j939-p2v3 in your dependencies?
Find it across Go, including transitive dependencies.