CVE-2026-48712 protobufjs: Denial of service through unbounded Any expansion during JSON conversion
Attackers can cause denial of service in applications using protobufjs by sending crafted payloads that exhaust the call stack during JSON conversion.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-48712?
CVE-2026-48712 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in protobufjs protobuf.js, published on 22 Jun 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
protobufjs compiles protobuf definitions into JavaScript (JS) functions. Prior to 7.6.1 and 8.4.1, protobufjs could recurse without a depth limit while converting decoded messages to plain objects or JSON. This affected generated toObject() conversion and the custom google.protobuf.Any JSON conversion path. A crafted protobuf binary payload containing deeply nested Any values could cause the JavaScript call stack to be exhausted during conversion to JSON. This vulnerability is fixed in 7.6.1 and 8.4.1.
Weakness: CWE-674
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-48712?
4 open source packages ship an affected version, including protobufjs. It affects 1 product.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
protobufjs npm | All versions | 7.6.1 |
protobufjs npm | All versions | 7.6.1 |
protobufjs npm | From 8.0.0 | 8.4.1 |
protobufjs npm | From 8.0.0 | 8.4.1 |
Products include Protobufjs Project Protobufjs.
How do I fix CVE-2026-48712?
Upgrade protobufjs to a fixed version for your release line: 7.6.1 or 8.4.1.
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-2026-48712 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-48712 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in protobufjs protobuf.js
- CVE-2023-36665 protobufjs Prototype Pollution vulnerability
- CVE-2026-41242 protobufjs has an arbitrary code execution issue
- CVE-2022-25878 Prototype Pollution
- CVE-2026-44291 protobufjs: Code generation gadget after prototype pollution
- CVE-2026-44293 protobufjs: Code injection through bytes field defaults in generated toObject code
Sources
Also known as CLEANSTART-2026-OS65613, CLEANSTART-2026-YP30381, ECHO-e567-f725-0f5b, GHSA-wcpc-wj8m-hjx6, MINI-2pxx-9wrc-r8px, MINI-3hmx-rq3w-wr3h and 18 more.