protobufjs: Denial of service through unbounded Any expansion during JSON conversion

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

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

EPSS

• CVE-2026-48712: 0.46% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 39.92 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Summary protobufjs could recurse without a depth limit while converting decoded messages to plain objects or JSON. This affected generated toObject() conversion and the custom google.protobuf.Any JSON conversion path. A crafted protobuf binary payload containing deeply nested Any values could cause the JavaScript call stack to be exhausted during conversion to JSON. Impact An attacker who can provide protobuf binary data decoded by an application may be able to crash the process or otherwise cause message conversion to fail with a stack overflow. This affects applications that decode untrusted protobuf input containing google.protobuf.Any values and then convert decoded messages to JSON or plain objects with JSON conversion enabled, for example through JSON.stringify(message), Message#toJSON(), or Type.toObject(message, { json: true }). Applications that only decode and re-encode protobuf binary data without converting decoded messages to JSON are not directly affected by this issue.…

Published by the source

15 Jun 2026, 17:30 UTC

Last modified by the source

10 Sep 2026, 03:51 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 12:56 UTC

1. Revision 2 · amended · 26 Oct 2026

   Amended from ghsa record GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6

2. Revision 1 · created · 24 Oct 2026

   Published from osv record GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2026-48712

Advisory: protobufjs: Denial of service through unbounded Any expansion during JSON conversion
IDs: CVE-2026-48712, GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2026-48712 (revision 2, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 12:56 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: High (CVSS 7.5)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: protobufjs 8.4.1, 7.6.1. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- npm protobufjs: affected <= 7.6.0; >= 8.0.0, <= 8.4.0; fixed in 8.4.1, 7.6.1

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- `npm ls protobufjs --all`: lists every installed copy and version, including transitive ones. Run in the project root after `npm ci`.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on protobufjs.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6 (OSV record GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6 lists affected ranges: npm protobufjs >=0 =8.0.0 <8.4.1 (fixed))
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6 (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6 lists affected ranges: npm protobufjs >=0 =8.0.0 <=8.4.0)

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