GHSA-jh6x-7xfg-9cq2
MEDIUMSearching Opencast may cause a denial of service
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
org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl☕org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl☕org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-implReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
First noticed in Opencast 13 and 14, Opencast's Elasticsearch integration may generate syntactically invalid Elasticsearch queries in relation to previously acceptable search queries. From Opencast version 11.4 and newer, Elasticsearch queries are retried a configurable number of times in the case of error to handle temporary losses of connection to Elasticsearch. These invalid queries would fail, causing the retry mechanism to begin requerying with the same syntactically invalid query immediately, in an infinite loop. This causes a massive increase in log size which can in some cases cause a denial of service due to disk exhaustion.
Patches
Opencast 13.10 and Opencast 14.3 contain patches (https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5150, and https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5033) which address the base issue, with Opencast 16.7 containing changes which harmonize the search behaviour between the admin UI and external API. Users are strongly recommended to upgrade as soon as possible if running versions prior to 13.10 or 14.3. While the relevant endpoints require (by default) ROLE_ADMIN or ROLE_API_SERIES_VIEW, the problem queries are otherwise innocuous. This issue could be easily triggered by normal administrative work on an affected Opencast system. If you are running a version newer than 13.10 and 14.3 and seeing different results when searching in your admin UI vs your external API or LMS, upgrading to 16.7 should resolve the issue.
Workarounds
None identified.
References
Pull Requests
- Preventing the infinite loop issue: https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5150
- Sanitizing user input: https://github.com/opencast/opencast/pull/5033
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
Open an issue in our issue tracker Email us at [email protected]
Credit
Credit to Adilagha Aliyev of Graz University of Technology, Educational Technologies, [email protected]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl | ≥ 11.4&&< 13.10 | 13.10 |
| ☕Maven | org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl | ≥ 14.0&&< 14.3 | 14.3 |
| ☕Maven | org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl | ≥ 15.0&&< 16.7 | 16.7 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl. 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 org.opencastproject:opencast-elasticsearch-impl to 13.10 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-jh6x-7xfg-9cq2 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-jh6x-7xfg-9cq2 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-jh6x-7xfg-9cq2. 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-jh6x-7xfg-9cq2 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-jh6x-7xfg-9cq2 across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.