GHSA-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5
MEDIUMGHSA-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) remote code execution vulnerability in surrealdb. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
SurrealDB: Denial of Service via deep operator chains
Real-World Exposure
surrealdbReal-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
An authenticated user could crash a SurrealDB server with a single query containing a long chain of operators.
Such a query — for example RETURN 1 + 1 + 1 + ... with tens of thousands of terms — is parsed into an expression tree one level deep per operator. Because the chain is flat and the pratt parser appends to it iteratively, the configured query- and object-recursion limits never fire, so the tree grows unbounded with the length of the query.
The root cause: the over-deep tree is later walked recursively, one call per node, when it is dropped, formatted, or lowered for execution — overflowing the thread stack and aborting the process.
Impact
An authenticated user with query-execution privileges can crash a SurrealDB server with a single query containing a long chain of operators. The whole process aborts, denying service to every namespace and database on that instance until it is restarted. The crash occurs during query processing, before any data is read or written (availability only).
Patches
A patch introduces a dedicated expression-depth budget — expr_recursion_limit, sourced from max_expression_parsing_depth (default 128, configurable via SURREAL_MAX_EXPRESSION_PARSING_DEPTH). It is charged once per pratt-parser level and once per operator appended to the spine, so an over-deep operator chain is rejected with a syntax error instead of building a tree that overflows the stack downstream. Paths that re-parse already-validated stored data are exempted, so existing databases with deep stored expressions still load.
- Versions 3.1.5 and later are not affected by this issue.
Workarounds
Users unable to patch should consider the following workarounds:
- Restrict the ability of untrusted users to execute arbitrary queries via the
--deny-arbitrary-querycapability flag for the affected user classes (guest, record, or system). - Restrict untrusted access to the WebSocket
/rpcendpoint, which accepts larger request bodies than the HTTP/sqlendpoint. The/sqlendpoint's 1 MiB body limit lowers the achievable operator depth but does not by itself guarantee the stack cannot be exhausted. - Run SurrealDB under an orchestrator or process manager that restarts it automatically on exit (e.g. Kubernetes, systemd
Restart=on-failure, or a Docker restart policy), so the server recovers immediately after a crash. This limits downtime from a successful attack but does not prevent the crash.
References
- SurrealQL Documentation — Operators
fix(syn): bound expression operator-tree depth to prevent stack-overflow DoS
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.1.5 | 3.1.5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for surrealdb. 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 surrealdb to 3.1.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5 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-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5 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-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5. 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-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-jv2j-mqmw-xvv5 across crates.io dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.