GHSA-jjjh-jjxp-wpff CVE-2022-42003

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption in Jackson-databind

High Maven

Severity: 7.5 / 10; High · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS): 3.41%; Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 88.88% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited: No; Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness: CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption; CWE-502 Deserialization of Untrusted Data
Fix: 2.12.7.1; Upgrade com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind to this version or later

Description

In FasterXML jackson-databind 2.4.0-rc1 until 2.12.7.1 and in 2.13.x before 2.13.4.2 resource exhaustion can occur because of a lack of a check in primitive value deserializers to avoid deep wrapper array nesting, when the UNWRAP_SINGLE_VALUE_ARRAYS feature is enabled. This was patched in 2.12.7.1, 2.13.4.2, and 2.14.0.

Commits that introduced vulnerable code are https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/commit/d499f2e7bbc5ebd63af11e1f5cf1989fa323aa45, https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/commit/0e37a39502439ecbaa1a5b5188387c01bf7f7fa1, and https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/commit/7ba9ac5b87a9d6ac0d2815158ecbeb315ad4dcdc.

Fix commits are https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/commit/cd090979b7ea78c75e4de8a4aed04f7e9fa8deea and https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/commit/d78d00ee7b5245b93103fef3187f70543d67ca33.

The 2.13.4.1 release does fix this issue, however it also references a non-existent jackson-bom which causes build failures for gradle users. See https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind/issues/3627#issuecomment-1277957548 for details. This is fixed in 2.13.4.2 which is listed in the advisory metadata so that users are not subjected to unnecessary build failures

Affected versions

Maven

Package	Vulnerable	Fixed in
com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind	`>= 2.4.0-rc1, < 2.12.7.1`	`2.12.7.1`
com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind	`>= 2.13.0, < 2.13.4.2`	`2.13.4.2`

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind Maven → `2.12.7.1`

maven

<dependency><groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId><artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId><version>2.12.7.1</version></dependency>

gradle

implementation("com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind:2.12.7.1")

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 7.5

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Weakness

CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

How to prevent it

Architecture and Design: Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
Architecture and Design: Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed. The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question. The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
Architecture and Design: Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
Implementation: Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.

CWE-502: Deserialization of Untrusted Data

The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently ensuring that the resulting data will be valid.

How to prevent it

Architecture and Design, Implementation: If available, use the signing/sealing features of the programming language to assure that deserialized data has not been tainted. For example, a hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) could be used to ensure that data has not been modified.
Implementation: When deserializing data, populate a new object rather than just deserializing. The result is that the data flows through safe input validation and that the functions are safe.
Implementation: Explicitly define a final object() to prevent deserialization.
Architecture and Design, Implementation: Make fields transient to protect them from deserialization. An attempt to serialize and then deserialize a class containing transient fields will result in NULLs where the transient data should be. This is an excellent way to prevent time, environment-based, or sensitive variables from being carried over and used improperly.
Implementation: Avoid having unnecessary types or gadgets (a sequence of instances and method invocations that can self-execute during the deserialization process, often found in libraries) available that can be leveraged for malicious ends. This limits the potential for unintended or unauthorized types and gadgets to be leveraged by the attacker. Add only acceptable classes to an allowlist. Note: new gadgets are constantly being discovered, so this alone is not a sufficient mitigation.
Architecture and Design, Implementation: Employ cryptography of the data or code for protection. However, it's important to note that it would still be client-side security. This is risky because if the client is compromised then the security implemented on the client (the cryptography) can be bypassed.
Operation: Use an application firewall that can detect attacks against this weakness. It can be beneficial in cases in which the code cannot be fixed (because it is controlled by a third party), as an emergency prevention measure while more comprehensive software assurance measures are applied, or to provide defense in depth [REF-1481].

References

Advisories

Packages

github.com/FasterXML/jackson-databind

Timeline

Oct 2, 2022 Published
Oct 7, 2026 Last updated by the source
Nov 1, 2026 Latest EPSS score

Advisory	Severity	Why it's related
GHSA-cxp5-3px4-pw24 jackson-databind quadratic forward-reference completion	High	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-wv8q-qhhj-9h54 jackson-databind retains every unknown raw type ID	High	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-q4xh-88c3-wmh7 jackson-databind: Duration XMLGregorianCalendar Unbounded Number Parse DoS	High	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-gx83-3vf8-gh7j jackson-databind: Comparable missing from DefaultBaseTypeLimitingValidator's unsafe base types (incomplete PolymorphicTypeValidator denylist)	Medium	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-wjgm-6hv5-3cvf jackson-databind: Path Deserialization Missing Scheme Allowlist for FileSystemProvider Resolution	Medium	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-vvgp-rfg2-7rr6 jackson-databind: Incomplete fix for CVE-2026-54514: eager DNS resolution (SSRF) still present in InetAddress deserialization	Medium	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-mhm7-754m-9p8w jackson-databind: `@JsonView` bypass for creator properties with `@JsonTypeInfo(include=As.EXTERNAL_PROPERTY)`	Medium	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind
GHSA-5gvw-p9qm-jgwh jackson-databind: @JsonView bypassed for @JsonUnwrapped container properties on deserialization	Medium	Also affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind

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