Low, CVSS 2.0GoAmendedPublished
ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption
CVE-2026-55588 · GHSA-298f-872v-2rcx
- Affected
- Go oras.land/oras < 1.3.3
- Fixed in
- 1.3.3· Vendor fix available
- Issue
- A malicious OCI registry can return a cyclic referrer graph (e.g. A - A or A - B - A). The ORAS CLI's recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a cycle causes unbounded recursion and memory growth — a client-side denial of service. This affects oras discover (recursive referrer traversal) and the recursive referrer counting used by oras backup and oras restore. Because oras discover --depth defaults to 0 (unlimited), discover is affected out of the box. Note: This advisory covers only the ORAS CLI (oras.land/oras). The related Referrers API pagination loop in the oras-go library is tracked in a separate advisory on the oras-go repository. Details In oras discover, recursive referrer traversal follows discovered referrers without maintaining a visited-descriptor set. Simplified flow: A malicious registry can create cyclic graphs such as: or Because traversal does not track previously visited descriptors, recursion never reaches a terminating…
Recommended action: Upgrade to 1.3.3 or later, then redeploy and verify.A vendor fix does not resolve your finding until you verify it in your own systems.