GHSA-x996-7qh9-7ff7
HIGHHyperledger indy-node vulnerable to denial of service
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.
Blast Radius
indy-nodeReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
An attacker can max out the number of client connections allowed by the ledger that was deployed using guidance provided in the indy-node repository, leaving the ledger unable to be used for its intended purpose.
The ledger content will not be impacted by the attack, and the ledger will resume servicing valid client requests after the attack.
Mitigations
This attack exploits the trade-off between resilience and availability. Any protection against abusive client connections will also prevent the network being accessed by certain legitimate users. As a result, validator nodes must tune their firewall rules to ensure the right trade-off for their network's expected users. The guidance previously provided enabled a low-cost DDoS attack.
The guidance to network operators for the use of firewall rules in the deployment of Indy networks has been modified to better protect against denial of service attacks by increasing the cost and complexity in mounting such attacks.
The mitigation for this vulnerability is not in the Hyperledger Indy code per se, but rather in the individual deployments of Indy. The mitigations should be applied to all deployments of Indy, and are not related to a particular release.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Mirko Mollik at TrustCerts.de for finding and responsibly disclosing this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | indy-node | all versions | No fix |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for indy-node. 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.
Remediation status
No patched version of indy-node has shipped for GHSA-x996-7qh9-7ff7 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
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 pinpoints whether GHSA-x996-7qh9-7ff7 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-x996-7qh9-7ff7. 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-x996-7qh9-7ff7 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-x996-7qh9-7ff7 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.