GHSA-v23w-pppm-jh66 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in silverstripe/graphql. A fix is available for silverstripe/graphql — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Silverstripe GraphQL has DDOS Vulnerability due to lack of protection against recursive queries
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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-v23w-pppm-jh66.
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-v23w-pppm-jh66 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 376,715 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
silverstripe/graphql🐘silverstripe/graphql🐘silverstripe/graphql🐘silverstripe/graphql🐘silverstripe/graphqlReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Packagist packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
An attacker could use a recursive graphql query to execute a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDOS attack) against a website. This mostly affects websites with publicly exposed graphql schemas.
If your Silverstripe CMS project does not expose a public facing graphql schema, a user account is required to trigger the DDOS attack. If your site is hosted behind a content delivery network (CDN), such as Imperva or CloudFlare, this may further mitigate the risk.
The fix includes some new configuration options which you might want to tweak for your project, based on your own requirements. See the documentation in the references for details.
Patches
Patched in 3.8.2, 4.1.3, 4.2.5, 4.3.4, 5.0.3
References
- CVE-2023-40180 on silverstripe.org
- Documentation about protection against recursive or complex queries for silverstripe/graphql 4.x/5.x
- Documentation about protection against recursive or complex queries for silverstripe/graphql 3.x
Reported by
Jason Nguyen from phew (https://phew.co.nz/)
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐘Packagist | silverstripe/graphql | ≥ 3.0.0&&< 3.8.2 | 3.8.2composer require silverstripe/graphql:^3.8.2 |
| 🐘Packagist | silverstripe/graphql | ≥ 4.0.0&&< 4.1.3 | 4.1.3composer require silverstripe/graphql:^4.1.3 |
| 🐘Packagist | silverstripe/graphql | ≥ 4.2.0&&< 4.2.5 | 4.2.5composer require silverstripe/graphql:^4.2.5 |
| 🐘Packagist | silverstripe/graphql | ≥ 4.3.0&&< 4.3.4 | 4.3.4composer require silverstripe/graphql:^4.3.4 |
| 🐘Packagist | silverstripe/graphql | ≥ 5.0.0&&< 5.0.3 | 5.0.3composer require silverstripe/graphql:^5.0.3 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for silverstripe/graphql, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update silverstripe/graphql to 3.8.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-v23w-pppm-jh66 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-v23w-pppm-jh66 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-v23w-pppm-jh66. 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-v23w-pppm-jh66 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-v23w-pppm-jh66 across Packagist dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.