GHSA-5X78-73V4-XG6W

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-08-24 19:43 – Updated: 2026-08-24 19:43
VLAI
Summary
postgres-protocol: Unbounded SCRAM iteration count allows a malicious server to cause CPU-exhaustion denial of service
Details

A malicious, compromised, or man-in-the-middle server can supply an arbitrarily large SCRAM-SHA-256 PBKDF2 iteration count during authentication. The client runs it inline with no upper bound, pinning a tokio worker thread for minutes per connection, possibly stalling the whole async runtime.

Applications that connect only to a trusted database are not exposed; the risk applies to clients that may connect to untrusted or user-supplied servers, or whose connection can be intercepted by a man-in-the-middle.

Severity
8.7 (High)
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
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{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "crates.io",
        "name": "postgres-protocol"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0.3.0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "0.6.12"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-770"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2026-08-24T19:43:31Z",
    "nvd_published_at": null,
    "severity": "HIGH"
  },
  "details": "A malicious, compromised, or man-in-the-middle server can supply an arbitrarily\nlarge SCRAM-SHA-256 PBKDF2 iteration count during authentication. The client\nruns it inline with no upper bound, pinning a `tokio` worker thread for minutes\nper connection, possibly stalling the whole async runtime.\n\nApplications that connect only to a trusted database are not exposed; the risk\napplies to clients that may connect to untrusted or user-supplied servers, or\nwhose connection can be intercepted by a man-in-the-middle.",
  "id": "GHSA-5x78-73v4-xg6w",
  "modified": "2026-08-24T19:43:32Z",
  "published": "2026-08-24T19:43:31Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/rust-postgres/rust-postgres/commit/d40097a36a85068ea50a3afbf0ce154ba439e7f0"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/rust-postgres/rust-postgres"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/rust-postgres/rust-postgres/releases/tag/postgres-protocol-v0.6.12"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2026-0179.html"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "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",
      "type": "CVSS_V4"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "postgres-protocol: Unbounded SCRAM iteration count allows a malicious server to cause CPU-exhaustion denial of service"
}



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