CVE-2023-1370 Stack exhaustion in json-smart leads to denial of service when parsing malformed JSON
Attackers can cause a denial of service by sending deeply nested JSON, triggering stack exhaustion in the json-smart library.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2023-1370?
CVE-2023-1370 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in json-smart, published on 13 Mar 2023. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
[Json-smart](https://netplex.github.io/json-smart/) is a performance focused, JSON processor lib.
When reaching a ‘[‘ or ‘{‘ character in the JSON input, the code parses an array or an object respectively.
It was discovered that the code does not have any limit to the nesting of such arrays or objects. Since the parsing of nested arrays and objects is done recursively, nesting too many of them can cause a stack exhaustion (stack overflow) and crash the software.
Weakness: CWE-674
Which versions are affected by CVE-2023-1370?
2 open source packages ship an affected version, including net.minidev:json-smart. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
net.minidev:json-smart Maven | All versions | 2.4.9 |
net.minidev:json-smart Maven | All versions | 2.4.9 |
Linux distribution packages (1)
jenkins-2-plugins Red Hat:openshift:4.10::el8 | All versions | 0:4.10.1684982411-1.el8 |
Products include Json-Smart Project Json-Smart.
How do I fix CVE-2023-1370?
Upgrade net.minidev:json-smart to 2.4.9 or later.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2023-1370 being exploited?
It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2023-1370 exists.
Sources
Also known as CLEANSTART-2026-SG86847, CLEANSTART-2026-VC78491, CLSA-2025-1761005192, CLSA-2026-1791879047, CLSA-2026-1791879577, CLSA-2026-1792010833 and 19 more.