GHSA-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in adm-zip. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
adm-zip: Crafted ZIP file triggers 4GB memory allocation
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-xcpc-8h2w-3j85.
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-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 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 369,023 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
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
adm-zipnpmDescription
adm-zip before 0.5.18 is vulnerable to denial of service via a crafted ZIP file with a manipulated uncompressed size header field. In zipEntry.js line 103, Buffer.alloc(_centralHeader.size) allocates memory based on the declared uncompressed size from the ZIP central directory header without validating it against the actual compressed data size or imposing any upper bound. The size value is read directly from the binary header at entryHeader.js line 266 with no bounds check. An attacker can craft a ~120-byte ZIP file that declares ~4GB uncompressed size, causing a memory allocation amplification ratio of over 33 million to 1. The allocation occurs before CRC validation, so the malicious payload cannot be rejected early. All extraction and read methods are affected: readFile(), readAsText(), extractEntryTo(), extractAllTo(), extractAllToAsync(), test(), and entry.getData(). Any application accepting untrusted ZIP files via adm-zip is vulnerable to immediate process crash.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | adm-zip | all versions | 0.6.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for adm-zip. 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.
Fix
Update adm-zip to 0.6.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 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 pinpoints whether GHSA-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 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-xcpc-8h2w-3j85. 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-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-xcpc-8h2w-3j85 across npm dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.