GHSA-8qv2-5vq6-g2g7
webpki: CPU denial of service in certificate path building
When this crate is given a pathological certificate chain to validate, it will spend CPU time exponential with the number of candidate certificates at each step of path building.
Both TLS clients and TLS servers that accept client certificate are affected.
This was previously reported in https://github.com/briansmith/webpki/issues/69.
rustls-webpki is a fork of this crate which contains a fix for this issue and is actively maintained.
Attack profile
How easy it is to exploit
- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges needed
- None
- User interaction
- None
What an attacker can affect
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
What each source reports
GitHub Advisories Score used
webpki: CPU denial of service in certificate path building
When this crate is given a pathological certificate chain to validate, it will spend CPU time exponential with the number of candidate certificates at each step of path building.
Both TLS clients and TLS servers that accept client certificate are affected.
This was previously reported in https://github.com/briansmith/webpki/issues/69.
rustls-webpki is a fork of this crate which contains a fix for this issue and is actively maintained.
- Record
GHSA-8qv2-5vq6-g2g7- CVSS 3.0
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - Weakness
- CWE-400
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSV
webpki: CPU denial of service in certificate path building
When this crate is given a pathological certificate chain to validate, it will spend CPU time exponential with the number of candidate certificates at each step of path building.
Both TLS clients and TLS servers that accept client certificate are affected.
This was previously reported in https://github.com/briansmith/webpki/issues/69.
rustls-webpki is a fork of this crate which contains a fix for this issue and is actively maintained.
- Record
GHSA-8qv2-5vq6-g2g7- CVSS 3.0
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - Weakness
- CWE-400
- Updated
- 2026-11-02
OSVRUSTSEC-2023-0052
webpki: CPU denial of service in certificate path building
When this crate is given a pathological certificate chain to validate, it will spend CPU time exponential with the number of candidate certificates at each step of path building.
Both TLS clients and TLS servers that accept client certificate are affected.
This was previously reported in https://github.com/briansmith/webpki/issues/69 and re-reported recently by Luke Malinowski.
webpki 0.22.1 included a partial fix and webpki 0.22.2 added further fixes.
- Record
RUSTSEC-2023-0052- CVSS 3.0
- 7.5 High
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H - Updated
- 2026-11-02
Affected packages
History
| Recorded | Changed | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| first indexed | GitHub Advisories, OSV |
Dates are when Every CVE recorded each change. Upstream dates may differ.
In short
GHSA-8qv2-5vq6-g2g7 is a high vulnerability (CVSS 7.5) in webpki, published August 22, 2023. No source lists public exploit code. Fixed in webpki 0.22.2.