How severe is GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq?

GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq has a CVSS score of 8.2/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq?

GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq affects the following packages: whoami (crates.io). Ecosystems affected: crates.io.

How do I fix GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq?

Update whoami to 1.5.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq in my crates.io dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for whoami, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

How do I mitigate GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq?

O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Is GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

When was GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq was published on April 5, 2024 and was last updated on April 11, 2024. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🦀

🦀 crates.io

Not in CISA KEV

HIGH severity

GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq — whoami

HIGHFix: ardaku/whoami@d6ee13e

GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq is a high-severity (CVSS 8.2) remote code execution vulnerability in whoami. A fix is available for whoami — see the affected versions and patch details below.

whoami stack buffer overflow on several Unix platforms

Also known asRUSTSEC-2024-0020

Published

Apr 5, 2024

Updated

Apr 11, 2024

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Apr 11, 2024 · OSV.dev, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Real-World Exposure

1 pkg affected

🦀whoami

Real-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

With versions of the whoami crate >= 0.5.3 and < 1.5.0, calling any of these functions leads to an immediate stack buffer overflow on illumos and Solaris:

whoami::username
whoami::realname
whoami::username_os
whoami::realname_os

With versions of the whoami crate >= 0.5.3 and < 1.0.1, calling any of the above functions also leads to a stack buffer overflow on these platforms:

Bitrig
DragonFlyBSD
FreeBSD
NetBSD
OpenBSD

This occurs because of an incorrect definition of the passwd struct on those platforms.

As a result of this issue, denial of service and data corruption have both been observed in the wild. The issue is possibly exploitable as well.

This vulnerability also affects other Unix platforms that aren't Linux or macOS.

This issue has been addressed in whoami 1.5.0.

For more information, see this GitHub issue.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🦀crates.io	`whoami`	≥ 0.5.3&&< 1.5.0	1.5.0`cargo update -p whoami --precise 1.5.0`

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for whoami, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update whoami to 1.5.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq 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-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.

Tailored to GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

With versions of the whoami crate >= 0.5.3 and < 1.5.0, calling any of these functions leads to an immediate stack buffer overflow on illumos and Solaris: - `whoami::username` - `whoami::realname` - `whoami::username_os` - `whoami::realname_os` With versions of the whoami crate >= 0.5.3 and < 1.0.1, calling any of the above functions also leads to a stack buffer overflow on these platforms: - Bitrig - DragonFlyBSD - FreeBSD - NetBSD - OpenBSD This occurs because of an incorrect definition of the `passwd` struct on those platforms. As a result of this issue, denial of service and data corr

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq in your dependencies?

O3 Security finds GHSA-w5w5-8vfh-xcjq across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works