GHSA-m452-q8c9-rg2f is a medium-severity (CVSS 4) CWE-1275 vulnerability in org.asynchttpclient:async-http-client. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-m452-q8c9-rg2f is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
AsyncHttpClient stores cookie for an unrelated domain (cookie tossing) via ThreadSafeCookieStore
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-m452-q8c9-rg2f.
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-m452-q8c9-rg2f 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 0 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
org.asynchttpclient:async-http-client☕org.asynchttpclient:async-http-clientReal-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
A cookie tossing / cookie injection issue (CWE-1275). ThreadSafeCookieStore stored a cookie under the value of its Domain attribute without verifying that the responding host is allowed to set a cookie for that domain (RFC 6265 §5.3 step 6). A host the client connects to can therefore plant a cookie scoped to an unrelated domain, and the client will then send that cookie on later requests to that domain.
Who is Impacted
Applications that use a single AsyncHttpClient instance - and thus the default, shared CookieStore - to reach both an attacker-influenced host and a trusted host. Typical exposure: crawlers, link-preview / webhook fetchers, SSRF-style "fetch this URL" features, multi-backend aggregators, or following redirects to an attacker-controlled host. The attacker can write a cookie the client presents to the victim host (session fixation, overwriting a session id / CSRF-token cookie); they cannot read the victim host's cookies. Applications that talk only to a fixed trusted backend, or that disable/scope the cookie store, are not exposed.
Patches
Fixed in 3.0.11 and 2.16.0
Workarounds
- Disable the cookie store (setCookieStore(null)) when cookies are not needed; or
- Use a separate AsyncHttpClient (separate cookie store) per trust domain so an attacker-influenced host and a trusted host never share a jar
- Supply a custom CookieStore whose add(Uri, Cookie) rejects cookies whose Domain is not domain-matched by the request host.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.asynchttpclient:async-http-client | ≥ 3.0.0.Beta1&&< 3.0.11 | 3.0.11 |
| ☕Maven | org.asynchttpclient:async-http-client | ≥ 2.0.0&&< 2.16.0 | 2.16.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.asynchttpclient:async-http-client. 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.asynchttpclient:async-http-client to 3.0.11 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-m452-q8c9-rg2f 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-m452-q8c9-rg2f 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-m452-q8c9-rg2f. 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-m452-q8c9-rg2f in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-m452-q8c9-rg2f across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.