GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp
hickory-proto vulnerable to CPU exhaustion during message encoding due to O(n²) name compression
Blast Radius
hickory-protoReal-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
During message encoding, hickory-proto's BinEncoder stores pointers to labels that are candidates for name compression in a Vec<(usize, Vec<u8>)>. The name compression logic then searches for matches with a linear scan.
A malicious message with many records can both introduce many candidate labels, and invoke this linear scan many times. This can amplify CPU exhaustion in DoS attacks.
This is similar to CVE-2024-8508.
Reporter
Qifan Zhang, Palo Alto Networks
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | hickory-proto | ≥ 0.3.1&&< 0.26.1 | 0.26.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for hickory-proto. 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 hickory-proto to 0.26.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp 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-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp 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-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp. 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-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp 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.