Protobuf

A denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability exists in google.protobuf.json_format.ParseDict() in Python, where the max_recursion_depth limit can be bypassed when parsing nested google.protobuf.Any messages. Due to missing recursion depth accounting inside the internal Any-handling logic, an attacker can supply deeply nested Any structures that bypass the intended recursion limit, eventually exhausting Python’s recursion stack and causing a RecursionError.

Published: 2026-01-23T14:55:16.876Z
Updated: 2026-01-30T14:28:11.435Z

Any project that parses untrusted Protocol Buffers data containing an arbitrary number of nested groups / series of SGROUP tags can corrupted by exceeding the stack limit i.e. StackOverflow. Parsing nested groups as unknown fields with DiscardUnknownFieldsParser or Java Protobuf Lite parser, or against Protobuf map fields, creates unbounded recursions that can be abused by an attacker.

Published: 2024-09-19T00:18:45.824Z
Updated: 2025-09-08T09:37:53.702Z

The JsonToBinaryStream() function is part of the protocol buffers C++ implementation and is used to parse JSON from a stream. If the input is broken up into separate chunks in a certain way, the parser will attempt to read bytes from a chunk that has already been freed. 

Published: 2024-05-03T12:58:39.449Z
Updated: 2024-08-01T19:11:53.511Z

Nullptr dereference when a null char is present in a proto symbol. The symbol is parsed incorrectly, leading to an unchecked call into the proto file's name during generation of the resulting error message. Since the symbol is incorrectly parsed, the file is nullptr. We recommend upgrading to version 3.15.0 or greater.

Published: 2022-01-26T00:00:00.000Z
Updated: 2025-04-21T13:56:58.459Z

protobuf allows remote authenticated attackers to cause a heap-based buffer overflow.

Published: 2017-09-25T17:00:00.000Z
Updated: 2024-08-06T06:41:08.584Z