GHSA-pc8g-78pf-4xrp is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin. A fix is available for github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OliveTin has Unauthenticated Denial of Service via Memory Exhaustion in PasswordHash API Endpoint
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-pc8g-78pf-4xrp.
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-pc8g-78pf-4xrp 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 377,166 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
github.com/OliveTin/OliveTinReal-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
Summary
The PasswordHash API endpoint allows unauthenticated users to trigger excessive memory allocation by sending concurrent password hashing requests. By issuing multiple parallel requests, an attacker can exhaust available container memory, leading to service degradation or complete denial of service (DoS).
The issue occurs because the endpoint performs computationally and memory-intensive hashing operations without request throttling, authentication requirements, or resource limits.
Details
The vulnerable endpoint:
POST /api/olivetin.api.v1.OliveTinApiService/PasswordHash
accepts a JSON body containing a password field and returns a computed password hash.
Each request triggers a memory-intensive hashing operation. When multiple concurrent requests are sent, memory consumption increases significantly. There are no safeguards such as:
- Authentication requirements
- Rate limiting
- Request throttling
- Memory usage caps per request
- Concurrency controls
As a result, an attacker can repeatedly invoke the endpoint in parallel, causing excessive RAM allocation inside the container.
In a test environment, 50 concurrent requests resulted in approximately 3.2 GB of memory usage (≈64 MB per request), leading to service instability.
This behavior allows unauthenticated attackers to perform a denial of service attack by exhausting server memory resources.
PoC
Environment
- Docker container: olivetin-test
- Exposed API on: http://localhost:1337
- Default configuration (no authentication enabled)
Reproduction Steps
Run the following script to send 50 concurrent requests:
for i in $(seq 1 50); do
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1337/api/olivetin.api.v1.OliveTinApiService/PasswordHash \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{\"password\":\"flood-$i\"}" &
done
docker stats olivetin-test --no-stream
wait
┌──(root㉿kali)-[~/cve/OliveTin]
└─# docker stats olivetin-test --no-stream
CONTAINER ID NAME CPU % MEM USAGE / LIMIT MEM % NET I/O BLOCK I/O PIDS
18509670bf3e olivetin-test 344.63% 6.189GiB / 7.753GiB 79.83% 313kB / 288kB 4.31MB / 106MB 7
Docker CPU is 344.63%
Impact
This vulnerability allows unauthenticated remote attackers to:
- Exhaust server memory
- Crash the service
- Cause availability loss
- Trigger container termination in orchestrated environments
This is a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability affecting service availability.
Production deployments without reverse proxy rate limiting (e.g., Nginx, Traefik) are especially at risk.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin | all versions | 0.0.0-20260227002407-2eb5f0ba79d4go get github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin@v0.0.0-20260227002407-2eb5f0ba79d4 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/OliveTin/OliveTin to 0.0.0-20260227002407-2eb5f0ba79d4 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-pc8g-78pf-4xrp 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-pc8g-78pf-4xrp can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-pc8g-78pf-4xrp. 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-pc8g-78pf-4xrp in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-pc8g-78pf-4xrp across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.