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GHSA-47q9-m4ww-924m
No affected components available
Description
The Package.Unmarshal() function in pkg/types/alpine/apk.go decompresses the signature and control gzip members of an APK file into in-memory buffers without bounding the total decompressed size. The existing max_apk_metadata_size check (default 1MB) is only applied to individual tar entry header sizes after decompression completes, so it does not prevent a decompression bomb from consuming unbounded heap memory.
An attacker can craft a gzip stream that compresses at a ~1000:1 ratio (e.g., 2MB compressed zeros → 2GB decompressed). When submitted as spec.package.content in an Alpine ProposedEntry, the server decompresses the full payload into memory during request processing, triggering a fatal Go runtime out-of-memory error or OS OOM-kill that cannot be caught by the server's recover() middleware.
This is reachable via two unauthenticated endpoints:
- POST /api/v1/log/entries (createLogEntry)
- POST /api/v1/log/entries/retrieve (searchLogQuery)
Both invoke V001Entry.Canonicalize() → fetchExternalEntities() → apk.Unmarshal(packageData), which performs the unbounded decompression.
Workarounds
There is no effective workaround. Setting max_request_body_size reduces but does not eliminate exposure due to the ~1000:1 compression ratio (a 1MB body limit still allows ~1GB heap allocation). Setting max_apk_metadata_size has no effect on this vulnerability since the check is applied after decompression.
The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.
Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.
Probability that this vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
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