GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 — libp2p
HIGHGHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in libp2p. A fix is available for libp2p — see the affected versions and patch details below.
libp2p DoS vulnerability from lack of resource management
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-jvgw-gccv-q5p8.
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.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 376,715 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
libp2pReal-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
Impact
An attacker node can cause a victim node to allocate a large number of small memory chunks, which can ultimately lead to the victim’s process running out of memory and thus getting killed by its operating system. When executed continuously, this can lead to a denial of service attack, especially relevant on a larger scale when run against more than one node of a libp2p based network.
Details
In the original version of the attack, the malicious node would continuously open new streams on a single connection using a stream multiplexer that doesn’t provide sufficient back pressure (mplex or yamux). While allocations per stream might be considered small, they multiply with the number of streams and connections. It is easy to defend against this one attack, e.g. by setting a strict per connection stream limit and connection limit. But there are other variations of this attack, e.g. causing memory allocations by sending partial payloads on various protocol levels, forcing the victim to buffer the partial payload for a period of time or by tricking the victim into pre-allocating buffers for messages which are never sent by the attacker.
Patches
Users are advised to upgrade to libp2p v0.45.1 or above.
References
Please see our DoS Mitigation page for more information on how to incorporate mitigation strategies, monitor your application, and respond to attacks: https://docs.libp2p.io/reference/dos-mitigation/.
Please see the related disclosure for go-libp2p: https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p/security/advisories/GHSA-j7qp-mfxf-8xjw and js-libp2p: https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p/security/advisories/GHSA-f44q-634c-jvwv
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, please email us at [email protected].
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | libp2p | all versions | 0.45.1cargo update -p libp2p --precise 0.45.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for libp2p, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update libp2p to 0.45.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8. 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-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-jvgw-gccv-q5p8 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.