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Medium, CVSS 6.9

hickory-proto vulnerable to CPU exhaustion during message encoding due to O(n²) name compression

GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp

What to do

Vendor fix available. Upgrade each affected package to the fixed version on its release line (hickory-proto 0.26.1), redeploy, then verify what is actually installed.

This page has no inventory attached, so it cannot say whether you are affected. A vendor fix is not proof that your deployment is fixed.

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Affected packages

Sources

Severity and exploitation
Exploitation
No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.
CVSS 4.0
6.9 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N · score source
EPSS
No dated EPSS signal available.
Source description

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

During message encoding, hickory-proto's BinEncoder stores pointers to labels that are candidates for name compression in a Vec<(usize, Vec<u8). The name compression logic then searches for matches with a linear scan. A malicious message with many records can both introduce many candidate labels, and invoke this linear scan many times. This can amplify CPU exhaustion in DoS attacks. This is similar to CVE-2024-8508. Reporter Qifan Zhang, Palo Alto Networks

Dates and revisions
Published by the source
Last modified by the source
Source last checked
  1. Revision 1 · created ·

    Published from ghsa record GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp

Agent brief

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# Patch Next advisory brief: GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp

Advisory: hickory-proto vulnerable to CPU exhaustion during message encoding due to O(n²) name compression
IDs: GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/ghsa-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 15:42 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: Medium (CVSS 6.9)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: hickory-proto 0.26.1. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- crates.io hickory-proto: affected >= 0.3.1, <= 0.26.0; fixed in 0.26.1

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- crates.io hickory-proto: check the installed version with your package manager.

## 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 hickory-proto.
- 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://github.com/advisories/GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-q2qq-hmj6-3wpp lists affected ranges: crates.io hickory-proto >=0.3.1 <=0.26.0)

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