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GHSA-w8vq-3hf9-xppx

MEDIUM

Apollo Router Unnamed "Subscription" operation results in Denial-of-Service

Also known asCVE-2023-41317
Published
Sep 7, 2023
Updated
Nov 8, 2023
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
0.7%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk46th percentile+0.40%
0.00%0.38%0.77%1.15%0.2%0.7%Dec 25Apr 26Jun 26

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.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected
🦀apollo-router

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

Impact

This is a Denial-of-Service (DoS) type vulnerability which causes the Router to panic and terminate when GraphQL Subscriptions are enabled. It can be triggered when all of the following conditions are met:

  1. Running Apollo Router v1.28.0, v1.28.1 or v1.29.0 ("impacted versions"); and
  2. The Supergraph schema provided to the Router (either via Apollo Uplink or explicitly via other configuration) has a subscription type with root-fields defined; and
  3. The YAML configuration provided to the Router has subscriptions enabled (they are disabled by default), either by setting enabled: true or by setting a valid mode within the subscriptions object (as seen in subscriptions' documentation); and
  4. An anonymous (i.e., un-named) subscription operation (e.g., subscription { ... }) is received by the Router

If all four of these criteria are met, the impacted versions will panic and terminate. There is no data-privacy risk or sensitive-information exposure aspect to this vulnerability.

Depending on the environment in which impacted versions are running and the high-availability characteristics of that environment, a single Router's termination may result in limited or reduced availability or other knock-on effects which are deployment-specific (e.g., depending on if there are multiple instances, auto-restart policies, etc.)

Discovery

This vulnerability was discovered by an internal Apollo team. We have no reports or evidence to support that that has been exploited outside of our own testing, research and follow-up.

Our public security policy can be reviewed at https://github.com/apollographql/router/security/policy and we consider the security of our projects a top priority. Please review the linked policy for more details.

Patches

This is fixed in Apollo Router v1.29.1, which is available on:

We recommend all users running the impacted configuration above to update to a patched version of the Router immediately. Router v1.29.1 should be a very simple upgrade from any impacted version.

Workarounds

Updating to v1.29.1 should be a clear and simple upgrade path for those running impacted versions. However, if Subscriptions are not necessary for your Graph – but are enabled via configuration — then disabling subscriptions is another option to mitigate the risk.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🦀crates.ioapollo-router≥ 1.28.0&&< 1.29.11.29.1

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for apollo-router. 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.

  2. Fix

    Update apollo-router to 1.29.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-w8vq-3hf9-xppx is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

  4. How O3 protects you

    O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-w8vq-3hf9-xppx 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-w8vq-3hf9-xppx. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact This is a Denial-of-Service (DoS) type vulnerability which causes the Router to panic and terminate when GraphQL Subscriptions are enabled. It can be triggered when **all of the following conditions are met**: 1. Running Apollo Router v1.28.0, v1.28.1 or v1.29.0 ("impacted versions"); **and** 2. The Supergraph schema provided to the Router (either via Apollo Uplink or explicitly via other configuration) **has a `subscription` type** with root-fields defined; **and** 3. The YAML configuration provided to the Router **has subscriptions enabled** (they are _disabled_ by default), ei
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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