PT-2025-16020 · Crates.Io · Surrealdb
Published
2025-04-10
·
Updated
2025-04-10
CVSS v4.0
6.0
Medium
| Vector | AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
In order to prevent DoS situations due to infinite recursions, SurrealDB implements a limit of nested calls for both native functions and embedded JavaScript functions.
However, in SurrealDB instances with embedded scripting functions enabled, it was found that this limit can be circumvented by utilizing both at the same time. If a native function contains JavaScript which issues a new query that calls that function, the recursion limit is not triggered.
Once executed, SurrealDB will follow the path of infinite recursions until the system runs out of memory, prior to the recursion limit being triggered.
This vulnerability can only affect SurrealDB servers explicitly enabling the scripting capability with
--allow-scripting or
--allow-all and equivalent environment variables SURREAL CAPS ALLOW SCRIPT=true and SURREAL CAPS ALLOW ALL=true.This issue was discovered and patched during an code audit and penetration test of SurrealDB by cure53, the severity defined within cure53's preliminary finding is Medium, matched by our CVSS v4 assessment.
Impact
For SurrealDB instances with embedded scripting functions enabled, this attack could be used to perform a DoS attack on the server by an authenticated user.
Patches
A patch has been created that further limits scripting function call limit recursion depth and disallows multiple calls to
surreadb.query() to run in parallel in a scripting function.- Versions 2.0.5, 2.1.5, 2.2.2 and later are not affected by this issue.
Workarounds
Deny execution of embedded scripting functions through the configuration of capabilities by starting SurrealDB with the
--deny-scripting flag or the equivalent environment variable SURREAL CAPS DENY SCRIPT=true. This has a usability implication, although scripting functions are disabled by default.References
Fix
Uncontrolled Recursion
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Weakness Enumeration
Related Identifiers
Affected Products
Surrealdb