GHSA-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr — oathkeeper
HIGHGHSA-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-863 vulnerability in github.com/ory/oathkeeper. A fix is available for github.com/ory/oathkeeper — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Possible bypass of token claim validation when OAuth2 Introspection caching is enabled
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-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr 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/ory/oathkeeperReal-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
When you make a request to an endpoint that requires the scope foo using an access token granted with that foo scope, introspection will be valid and that token will be cached. The problem comes when a second requests to an endpoint that requires the scope bar is made before the cache has expired. Whether the token is granted or not to the bar scope, introspection will be valid.
Patches
A patch will be released with v0.38.12-beta.1.
Workarounds
Per default, caching is disabled for the oauth2_introspection authenticator. When caching is disabled, this vulnerability does not exist.
Trace
The cache is checked in func (a *AuthenticatorOAuth2Introspection) Authenticate(...). From tokenFromCache() it seems that it only validates the token expiration date, but ignores whether the token has or not the proper scopes.
Post-Mortem
The vulnerability was introduced in PR #424. During review, we failed to require appropriate test coverage by the submitter which is the primary reason that the vulnerability passed the review process.
To avoid this from happening again we enabled codecov with a strict policy on the Ory Oathkeeper repository: Without an increase in code coverage the PR can not be merged.
To address this issue and any regressions we have added a test suite ensuring that the cache behaviour is correct in the different scenarios:
- Scope strategy is
none, cache is enabled, andrequested_scopeis not empty -> cache will not be used; - Scope strategy is
none, cache is enabled, andrequested_scopeis empty -> cache will be used; - Scope strategy is not
none, cache is enabled, andrequested_scopeis not empty -> cache will be used;
as well as validating if iss, aud, exp, token_use, and scope are validated.
Additionally, we added CodeQL scanning to the CI.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/ory/oathkeeper | ≥ 0.38.0-beta.2&&< 0.38.12-beta.1 | 0.38.12-beta.1go get github.com/ory/oathkeeper@v0.38.12-beta.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/ory/oathkeeper, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/ory/oathkeeper to 0.38.12-beta.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr 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-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr. 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-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-qvp4-rpmr-xwrr across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.