How severe is GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5?

GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 has a CVSS score of 8.2/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5?

GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 affects the following packages: github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs (Go), github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs (Go). Ecosystems affected: Go.

How do I fix GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5?

Update github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs to 0.6.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 in my Go dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Is GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5?

GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.9%, placing it in the 59th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5?

GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 is classified as Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400), CWE-770 (CWE-770). These weakness types describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 was published on May 11, 2023 and was last updated on September 10, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐹

🐹 Go

Not in CISA KEV

HIGH severity

Boxo bitswap/server: DOS unbounded persistent memory leakGHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5

HIGHFix: ipfs/boxo@62cbac4

GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs. A fix is available for github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Also known asCVE-2023-25568 GHSA-q3j6-22wf-3jh9GO-2023-1766

Published

May 11, 2023

Updated

Sep 10, 2026

Affected

2 pkgs

Patched

2 / 2

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Nov 5, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

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-m974-xj4j-7qv5.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk0.00%

Lower risk than most CVEs59th percentile — riskier than 59% of all scored CVEsHighest risk

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

2 pkgs affected

🐹github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs🐹github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs

Real-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

An attacker is able allocate arbitrarily many bytes in the Bitswap server by sending many WANT_BLOCK and or WANT_HAVE requests which are queued in an unbounded queue, with allocations that persist even if the connection is closed. This affects users accepting untrusted connections with the Bitswap server, this also affects users using the old API stubs at github.com/ipfs/boxo/bitswap because it transitively uses github.com/ipfs/boxo/bitswap/server.

We have renamed go-libipfs to boxo; this document uses both terms interchangeably. The version numbers for both are applicable, as they share the same historical timeline.

Remediation

Apply one of:

Update boxo to v0.6.0 or later
Update boxo to v0.4.1 Note that v0.5.0 is NOT safe, v0.4.1 is a backport of the v0.6.0 security fixes on top of v0.4.0.

Mitigations

The server now limits how many wantlist entries per peer it knows. The MaxQueuedWantlistEntriesPerPeer option allows configuring how many wantlist entries the server remembers; if a peer sends a wantlist bigger than this (including a sum of multiple delta updates) the server will truncate the wantlist to the match the limit. This defaults to 1024 entries per peer.
The server now properly clears state about peers when they disconnect. Peer state is more lazily allocated (only when a wantlist is received in the first place) and is properly cleared when the PeerDisconnected callback is received.
The server now ignores CIDs above some size. Clients were able to send any CID as long as the total protobuf message were bellow the 4MiB limit. This is allowed to allocate lots of memory with very little entries. This can be configured using the MaxCidSize option and defaults to 168 bytes.
The server now closes the connection if an inline CID is requested (either as WANT_* or CANCEL). The attack were more effective if done with CIDs that are present in target's blockstore, this is because this will push longer-lasting jobs on some priority queue. Since inline CID are literal data (instead of hashes of data), everyone always "has" any inline CID (since instead of loading the data from disk, it can be extracted from the CID). It makes no sense for anyone to ever ask you about an inline CID since they could also just parse it themselves. Thus, as a defensive measure, we kill the connection with peers that ask about an inline CID.

Vulnerable symbols

github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs/bitswap/server/internal/decision.(*Engine).MessageReceived
github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs/bitswap/server/internal/decision.(*Engine).NotifyNewBlocks
github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs/bitswap/server/internal/decision.(*Engine).findOrCreate
github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs/bitswap/server/internal/decision.(*Engine).PeerConnected

Patches

https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/commit/9cb5cb54d40b57084d1221ba83b9e6bb3fcc3197 (mitigations 1 and 2)
https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/commit/62cbac40b96f49e39cd7fedc77ee6b56adce4916 (mitigations 3 and 4)
https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/commit/baa748b682fabb21a4c1f7628a8af348d4645974 (tests)

Workarounds

If you are using the stubs at github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs/bitswap and not taking advantage of the features provided by the server, refactoring your code to use the new split API will allow you to run in a client-only mode using: github.com/ipfs/boxo/bitswap/client.

Affected Packages

2 total 2 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐹Go	`github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs`	≥ 0.5.0&&< 0.6.0	0.6.0`go get github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs@v0.6.0`
🐹Go	`github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs`	all versions	0.4.1`go get github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs@v0.4.1`

Affected Products

1 product · 2 configurations

Application

boxoprotocol

2 versions

0.4.00.5.0

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/ipfs/go-libipfs to 0.6.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-m974-xj4j-7qv5 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact An attacker is able allocate arbitrarily many bytes in the Bitswap server by sending many `WANT_BLOCK` and or `WANT_HAVE` requests which are queued in an unbounded queue, with allocations that persist even if the connection is closed. This affects users accepting untrusted connections with the Bitswap server, this also affects users using the old API stubs at `github.com/ipfs/boxo/bitswap` because it transitively uses `github.com/ipfs/boxo/bitswap/server`. We have [renamed go-libipfs to boxo](https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/issues/215); this document uses both terms interchangeably. T