Prototype Pollution in protobufjs

Description

The package protobufjs is vulnerable to Prototype Pollution, which can allow an attacker to add/modify properties of the Object.prototype. Versions after and including 6.10.0 until 6.10.3 and after and including 6.11.0 until 6.11.3 are vulnerable.

This vulnerability can occur in multiple ways:
1. by providing untrusted user input to util.setProperty or to ReflectionObject.setParsedOption functions
2. by parsing/loading .proto files

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2022-05-28 00:00:20 UTC
Updated
2023-11-29 22:15:55 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2022-06-02 20:36:05 UTC
NVD published
2022-05-27 20:15:00 UTC

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.42% 61.57%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.5 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-1321 Improperly Controlled Modification of Object Prototype Attributes ('Prototype Pollution')

Credits

  • dotdash (analyst)
  • steinz (analyst)

Affected packages (2)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
npm protobufjs >= 6.11.0, < 6.11.3 6.11.3
npm protobufjs >= 6.10.0, < 6.10.3 6.10.3

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence