GHSA-rwq6-crjg-9cpw is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-401 vulnerability in ic_cdk. A fix is available for ic_cdk — see the affected versions and patch details below.
ic-cdk has a memory leak when calling a canister method via `ic_cdk::call`
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- 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-rwq6-crjg-9cpw.
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-rwq6-crjg-9cpw 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 378,156 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
ic_cdk🦀ic_cdk🦀ic_cdk🦀ic_cdk🦀ic_cdk🦀ic_cdk🦀ic_cdk🦀ic_cdkReal-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
When a canister method is called via ic_cdk::call*, a new Future CallFuture is created and can be awaited by the caller to get the execution result. Internally, the state of the Future is tracked and stored in a struct called CallFutureState. A bug in the polling implementation of the CallFuture allows multiple references to be held for this internal state and not all references were dropped before the Future is resolved. Since we have unaccounted references held, a copy of the internal state ended up being persisted in the canister's heap and thus causing a memory leak.
Impact
Canisters built in Rust with ic_cdk and ic_cdk_timers are affected. If these canisters call a canister method, use timers or heartbeat, they will likely leak a small amount of memory on every such operation. In the worst case, this could lead to heap memory exhaustion triggered by an attacker.
Motoko based canisters are not affected by the bug.
Patches
The patch has been backported to all minor versions between >= 0.8.0, <= 0.15.0. The patched versions available are 0.8.2, 0.9.3, 0.10.1, 0.11.6, 0.12.2, 0.13.5, 0.14.1, 0.15.1 and their previous versions have been yanked.
Workarounds
There are no known workarounds at the moment. Developers are recommended to upgrade their canister as soon as possible to the latest available patched version of ic_cdk to avoid running out of Wasm heap memory.
[!NOTE]
Upgrading the canisters (without updatingic_cdk) also frees the leaked memory but it's only a temporary solution.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | ic_cdk | ≥ 0.8.0&&< 0.8.2 | 0.8.2cargo update -p ic_cdk --precise 0.8.2 |
| 🦀crates.io | ic_cdk | ≥ 0.9.0&&< 0.9.3 | 0.9.3cargo update -p ic_cdk --precise 0.9.3 |
| 🦀crates.io | ic_cdk | ≥ 0.10.0&&< 0.10.1 | 0.10.1cargo update -p ic_cdk --precise 0.10.1 |
| 🦀crates.io | ic_cdk | ≥ 0.11.0&&< 0.11.6 | 0.11.6cargo update -p ic_cdk --precise 0.11.6 |
| 🦀crates.io | ic_cdk | ≥ 0.12.0&&< 0.12.2 | 0.12.2cargo update -p ic_cdk --precise 0.12.2 |
| 🦀crates.io | ic_cdk | ≥ 0.13.0&&< 0.13.5 | 0.13.5cargo update -p ic_cdk --precise 0.13.5 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ic_cdk, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ic_cdk to 0.8.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-rwq6-crjg-9cpw 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-rwq6-crjg-9cpw can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-rwq6-crjg-9cpw. 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-rwq6-crjg-9cpw in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-rwq6-crjg-9cpw across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.