GitHub Advisoryadvisory · npm

GHSA-5jg4-p4qw-cgfr @stablelib/cbor: Stack exhaustion Denial of Service via deeply nested CBOR arrays, maps, or tags

HIGH Published 2026-04-04 Modified 2026-04-07 Official page ↗
Ecosystem
npm
Packages
@stablelib/cbor
Severity
High
CVSS vector
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Weaknesses
CWE-674
Reviewed
2026-04-04

Affected packages

• npm @stablelib/cbor: < 2.0.3 → fixed in 2.0.3

Description

Summary `@stablelib/cbor` decodes nested CBOR structures recursively and does not enforce a maximum nesting depth. A sufficiently deep attacker-controlled CBOR payload can therefore crash decoding with `RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded`. Details The decoder processes arrays, maps, and tagged values through recursive calls. Each nested container causes another descent into `_decodeValue()` until a leaf value is reached. There is no depth limit, no iterative fallback, and no protection against pathological nesting. An attacker can therefore supply a payload made of thousands of nested arrays, maps, or tags and force the decoder to recurse until the JavaScript call stack is exhausted. PoC ```js import { decode } from "@stablelib/cbor"; const depth = 12000; const payload = new Uint8Array(depth + 1); // Build [[[...[null]...]]] payload.fill(0x81, 0, depth); // array(1) payload[depth] = 0xf6; // null decode(payload); // RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded ``` Impact Any application that decodes attacker-controlled CBOR can be forced into a reliable denial of service with a single crafted payload. The immediate result is an exception during decoding. In services that do not catch that exception safely, the request fails and the worker or process handling the decode may terminate. Solution Upgrade to version 2.0.4. The stack is limited to 128 by default, but can be configured using the `maxDepth` option. Catch the `CBORMaxDepthExceededError` exception.

Related

Weakness · CWE (1)

  • CWE-674 Uncontrolled Recursion weakness

References