Skip to content

GHSA-q8qp-67f9-wr3f

SurrealDB vulnerable to Denial of Service due to nested types annotations

Medium crates.io
Severity
6.5 / 10
Medium · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
—
No score published
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-674 Uncontrolled Recursion
Fix
3.1.0
Upgrade surrealdb to this version or later

Description

The SurrealDB type/kind parser did not enforce the configured recursion depth limit when parsing nested type annotations. The expression parser already enforced the limit for analogous constructs; the kind parser omitted it. An authenticated attacker could send a query with deeply nested type annotations (e.g., array<option<array<option<...>>>>) and exhaust server memory, crashing the process.

This is an incomplete fix for GHSA-6r8p-hpg7-825g, which addressed the same class of bug in the expression parser but did not cover the kind/type annotation parser code path.

Impact

An authenticated user with query execution privileges can crash a SurrealDB server with a single WebSocket message containing deeply nested type annotations.

Patches

A patch has been introduced that wraps parse_concrete_kind and the OPTION<...> arm of parse_inner_kind with enter_object_recursion!, bounding the recursive cycle parse_concrete_kind → parse_inner_kind → parse_inner_single_kind → parse_concrete_kind at the configured object_recursion_limit (default 100). Regression tests cover both cast and DEFINE FIELD paths.

  • Versions 3.1.0 and later are not affected by this issue.

Workarounds

Restrict the ability of untrusted users to execute arbitrary queries via the --deny-arbitrary-query capability flag for the affected user classes (guest, record, or system). Disabling untrusted access to the WebSocket /rpc endpoint also prevents exploitation; the HTTP /sql endpoint's 1 MiB body limit constrains nesting to a depth where OOM is not feasible.

Affected versions

crates.io

PackageVulnerableFixed in
surrealdb
< 3.1.0
3.1.0

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.

surrealdb crates.io → 3.1.0

cargo
cargo update -p surrealdb --precise 3.1.0

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 6.5

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

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

Weakness

CWE-674: Uncontrolled Recursion

The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.

How to prevent it
  • Implementation: Ensure that an end condition will be reached under all logic conditions. The end condition may include checking against the depth of recursion and exiting with an error if the recursion goes too deep. The complexity of the end condition contributes to the effectiveness of this action.
  • Implementation: Increase the stack size.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-8rw6-p7m8-63jp
SurrealDB: Array element-level (field.*) SELECT permissions leak denied elements to record users
High Also affects surrealdb
GHSA-848m-r628-vrxw
SurrealDB: Custom API route lets authenticated callers override namespace/database scope via URL path
High Also affects surrealdb
GHSA-m3c3-78fh-w3w7
SurrealDB allows bypass of deny-net flags via DNS resolution
High Also affects SurrealDB
GHSA-whwg-vh4f-pmmf
SurrealDB: Edge PERMISSIONS FOR delete bypassed when a connected node is deleted
Medium Also affects surrealdb
GHSA-fwg2-gr34-q3w8
SurrealDB: ES512 silently downgraded to ES384 due to jsonwebtoken crate limitation
Medium Also affects surrealdb
GHSA-c8jx-96c9-8xrp
SurrealDB: Field-level SELECT permissions bypassed via indexed COUNT fast paths
Medium Also affects surrealdb
GHSA-wp87-mgvq-5j93
SurrealDB: USE NS/DB implicit creation bypasses DEFINE authorization
Medium Also affects surrealdb
GHSA-97vg-427p-8hx5
SurrealDB: Port-specific --deny-net rules silently bypassed on HTTP redirect
Medium Also affects surrealdb
Is this in your code?

MergeHarbor checks every repository's dependencies against this database, ranks what matters by exploitability and reachability, routes it to the owning team and opens the fix pull request.

Check your repos with MergeHarbor