GHSA-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.5) CWE-134 vulnerability in surrealdb. A fix is available for surrealdb — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Externally Controlled Format String in Scripting Functions
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4.
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-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4 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
surrealdbReal-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
The rquickjs crate used by SurrealDB implements Rust bindings to the QuickJS C library and is used to execute SurrealDB scripting functions. The rquickjs function Exception::throw_type takes a string and returns an error object. Prior to version 0.4.2 of the crate, this string would be fed directly into printf, which will receive the error string as a format string with no additional arguments, leading to undefined behavior. This issue triggers when a SurrealDB scripting function returns an error and its input contains a format string such as %s or %d.
This vulnerability can only affect SurrealDB servers explicitly enabling the scripting capability with --allow-scripting or --allow-all and equivalent environment variables SURREAL_CAPS_ALLOW_SCRIPT=true and SURREAL_CAPS_ALLOW_ALL=true.
Impact
An attacker with privileges to execute scripting functions with arbitrary inputs may be able to exploit this format string vulnerability in order read arbitrary memory from the remote SurrealDB process. A format string vulnerability may also be further exploited to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the SurrealDB process.
The fact that error messages are limited to 256 bytes coupled with exploit mitigation features supported in Rust executables may somewhat increase the complexity of exploiting this vulnerability to reliably achieve remote code execution in practice.
Patches
- Version 1.1.1 and later are not affected by this issue.
Workarounds
Users unable to update should restrict access from untrusted users to define and execute scripting functions. This can be achieved by removing the scripting capability by default or with --deny-scripting and equivalent environment variable SURREAL_CAPS_DENY_SCRIPT=true. If not possible, network access should be limited to trusted users.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | surrealdb | all versions | 1.1.1cargo update -p surrealdb --precise 1.1.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for surrealdb, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update surrealdb to 1.1.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4 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-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4. 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-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-q3gg-m8hr-h4x4 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.