GHSA-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc
HIGHGHSA-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in websocket. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Rust-WebSocket memory allocation based on untrusted length
Blast Radius
websocketReal-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
Impact
Untrusted websocket connections can cause an out-of-memory (OOM) process abort in a client or a server.
The root cause of the issue is during dataframe parsing.
Affected versions would allocate a buffer based on the declared dataframe size, which may come from an untrusted source.
When Vec::with_capacity fails to allocate, the default Rust allocator will abort the current process, killing all threads. This affects only sync (non-Tokio) implementation. Async version also does not limit memory, but does not use with_capacity, so DoS can happen only when bytes for oversized dataframe or message actually got delivered by the attacker.
This is a security concern for you, if
- your server application handles untrusted websocket connections
- OR your client application connects to untrusted websocket servers
Patches
The crashes are fixed in version 0.26.5 by imposing default dataframe size limits. Affected users are advised to update to this version.
Note that default memory limits are rather large (100MB dataframes and 200 MB messages), so they can still cause DoS in some environments (i.e. 32-bit). New API has been added to fine tune those limits for specific applications.
Workarounds
- Migrate your project to another, maintained Websocket library like Tungstenite.
- Accept only trusted WebSocket traffic.
- Filter the WebSocket traffic though some kind of proxy that ensures sanity limits on messages.
- Handle process aborts gracefully and limit process memory using OS tools.
Credits
This issue was reported by Evan Richter at ForAllSecure and found with Mayhem and Cargo Fuzz.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | websocket | all versions | 0.26.5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for websocket. 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 websocket to 0.26.5 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc 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-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc 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-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc. 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-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-qrjv-rf5q-qpxc 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.