GHSA-xj69-m9qq-8m94 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in github.com/anchore/quill. A fix is available for github.com/anchore/quill — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Quill has unbounded memory allocation via unvalidated size fields in Mach-O binary parsing
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-xj69-m9qq-8m94.
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-xj69-m9qq-8m94 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 379,145 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
github.com/anchore/quillReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Impact
Quill before version v0.7.1 contains an unbounded memory allocation vulnerability when parsing Mach-O binaries. Exploitation requires that Quill processes an attacker-supplied Mach-O binary, which is most likely in environments such as CI/CD pipelines, shared signing services, or any workflow where externally-submitted binaries are accepted for signing.
When parsing a Mach-O binary, Quill reads several size and count fields from the LC_CODE_SIGNATURE load command and embedded code signing structures (SuperBlob, BlobIndex) and uses them to allocate memory buffers without validating that the values are reasonable or consistent with the actual file size. Affected fields include DataSize, DataOffset, and Size from the load command, Count from the SuperBlob header, and Length from individual blob headers. An attacker can craft a minimal (~4KB) malicious Mach-O binary with extremely large values in these fields, causing Quill to attempt to allocate excessive memory. This leads to memory exhaustion and denial of service, potentially crashing the host process. Both the Quill CLI and Go library are affected when used to parse untrusted Mach-O files.
Patches
Fixed in Quill v0.7.1
Workarounds
None
Credit
Anchore would like to thank opera-aklajn (Opera) for reporting this vulnerability
Resources
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/anchore/quill | all versions | 0.7.1go get github.com/anchore/quill@v0.7.1 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/anchore/quill, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update github.com/anchore/quill to 0.7.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xj69-m9qq-8m94 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-xj69-m9qq-8m94 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-xj69-m9qq-8m94. 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-xj69-m9qq-8m94 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-xj69-m9qq-8m94 across Go dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.