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CVE-2023-50730 Typelevel Grackle

Affected softwareTypelevel Grackle
Severity7.5 High CVSS 3.1 2 scores
Fixed in0.18.0
WeaknessUncontrolled resource consumption (CWE-400)
Published22 Dec 2023
Updated17 Jun 2026

Description

Grackle is a GraphQL server written in functional Scala, built on the Typelevel stack. The GraphQL specification requires that GraphQL fragments must not form cycles, either directly or indirectly. Prior to Grackle version 0.18.0, that requirement wasn't checked, and queries with cyclic fragments would have been accepted for type checking and compilation. The attempted compilation of such fragments would result in a JVM StackOverflowError being thrown. Some knowledge of an applications GraphQL schema would be required to construct such a query, however no knowledge of any application-specific performance or other behavioural characteristics would be needed. Grackle uses the cats-parse library for parsing GraphQL queries. Prior to version 0.18.0, Grackle made use of the cats-parse recursive operator. However, recursive is not currently stack safe. recursive was used in three places in the parser: nested selection sets, nested input values (lists and objects), and nested list type declarations. Consequently, queries with deeply nested selection sets, input values or list types could be constructed which exploited this, causing a JVM StackOverflowException to be thrown during parsing. Because this happens very early in query processing, no specific knowledge of an applications GraphQL schema would be required to construct such a query. The possibility of small queries resulting in stack overflow is a potential denial of service vulnerability. This potentially affects all applications using Grackle which have untrusted users. Both stack overflow issues have been resolved in the v0.18.0 release of Grackle. As a workaround, users could interpose a sanitizing layer in between untrusted input and Grackle query processing.

CWE-770

Exploitation status

No public exploit

No exploit has been reported in the sources we check. Published 2 years ago.

  • CISA KEV not listed
  • VulnCheck KEV not listed
  • CISA Vulnrichment no assessment published
  • Indexed PoC none indexed
  • EPSS 0.83% chance in 30 days

Waratek protection

No exploit published

Within Waratek scope. In the sources we check, nobody has published exploit code for this CVE or reported it being exploited.

A public code fix exists: typelevel/grackle 56e244b.

  • Protection none
  • Action unverified
  • Review automated Upstream data
  • Record active
Decided by Exploit code for this candidate, published in a reviewed catalogue or a GitHub repository with 5 or more stars, or in use per CISA or VulnCheck; not only a CISA verdict, a forecast, or nothing at all
Finding This CVE is not listed in CISA KEV or VulnCheck KEV, CISA Vulnrichment records no active exploitation, no reviewed exploit catalogue carries an entry for it, and no GitHub PoC repository for it has 5 or more stars. Nobody has published exploit code worth tracing, so it is not a candidate for a rule ahead of the ones where somebody has; an upstream fix path does exist, so the remediation half of the candidacy still holds. This is a statement about what has been published, not about whether the defect is reachable or serious.
Candidate fix https://github.com/typelevel/grackle/commit/56e244b91659cf385df590fc6c46695b6f36cbfd : a commit: the change itself

CVSS

7.5 HIGH v3.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H 2 metrics

We show the highest score from the newest CVSS version. Scores from different versions can't be compared, and the first score listed is sometimes a 0.0 placeholder.

VersionScoreBandVectorAssignerType
CVSS 3.1 7.5 HIGH CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H security-advisories@github.com Secondary published
CVSS 3.1 7.5 HIGH CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H NVD Primary

Affected software and releases

Maven packages

Affected and fixed versions, from OSV.dev
PackageIntroducedFixedLast affected
org.typelevel:grackle-core_2.13 0 0.18.0 unbounded
org.typelevel:grackle-core_3 0 0.18.0 unbounded
org.typelevel:grackle-core_sjs1_2.13 0 0.18.0 unbounded
org.typelevel:grackle-core_sjs1_3 0 0.18.0 unbounded
org.typelevel:grackle-core_native0.4_2.13 0 0.18.0 unbounded
org.typelevel:grackle-core_native0.4_3 0 0.18.0 unbounded
edu.gemini:gsp-graphql-core_2.13 0 none 0.14.0
edu.gemini:gsp-graphql-core_3 0 none 0.14.0
edu.gemini:gsp-graphql-core_sjs1_2.13 0 none 0.14.0
edu.gemini:gsp-graphql-core_sjs1_3 0 none 0.14.0
edu.gemini:gsp-graphql-core_native0.4_2.13 0 none 0.14.0
edu.gemini:gsp-graphql-core_native0.4_3 0 none 0.14.0

Products and versions

13 products, 13 version entries
SourceVendorProductSchemeAffected versions
osv edu.gemini gsp-graphql-core_2.13 generic ≤ 0.14.0
osv edu.gemini gsp-graphql-core_3 generic ≤ 0.14.0
osv edu.gemini gsp-graphql-core_native0.4_2.13 generic ≤ 0.14.0
osv edu.gemini gsp-graphql-core_native0.4_3 generic ≤ 0.14.0
osv edu.gemini gsp-graphql-core_sjs1_2.13 generic ≤ 0.14.0
osv edu.gemini gsp-graphql-core_sjs1_3 generic ≤ 0.14.0
osv org.typelevel grackle-core_2.13 generic < 0.18.0
osv org.typelevel grackle-core_3 generic < 0.18.0
osv org.typelevel grackle-core_native0.4_2.13 generic < 0.18.0
osv org.typelevel grackle-core_native0.4_3 generic < 0.18.0
osv org.typelevel grackle-core_sjs1_2.13 generic < 0.18.0
osv org.typelevel grackle-core_sjs1_3 generic < 0.18.0
nvd typelevel grackle generic < 0.18.0

References

URLTags
https://github.com/typelevel/grackle/commit/56e244b91659cf385df590fc6c46695b6f36cbfd commit
https://github.com/typelevel/grackle/security/advisories/GHSA-g56x-7j6w-g8r8 WEB
https://github.com/typelevel/grackle PACKAGE
https://github.com/typelevel/grackle/releases/tag/v0.18.0 WEB

Timeline

Published2023-12-22By the CVE Program.
NVD record modified2026-06-17NVD's own last-modified date for this record.