Client operation hang via cyclic referrer traversal
Published Aug 25, 2026 · Updated Aug 27, 2026
Denial of service in ORAS CLI before 1.3.3 allows remote attackers to hang client operations via cyclic OCI referrer metadata. The fetchAllReferrers and RecursiveFindReferrers traversals recurse into returned descriptors without recording visited digests, causing unbounded CPU and memory growth on cycles. Exploitation requires a user or automation to query a malicious registry; discover uses unlimited recursion by default, while backup and restore also invoke affected counting logic.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in ORAS CLI before 1.3.3 allows remote attackers to hang client operations via cyclic OCI referrer metadata. The fetchAllReferrers and RecursiveFindReferrers traversals recurse into returned descriptors without recording visited digests, causing unbounded CPU and memory growth on cycles. Exploitation requires a user or automation to query a malicious registry; discover uses unlimited recursion by default, while backup and restore also invoke affected counting logic.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-55588
- Published
- Aug 25, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 27, 2026
- Vendor
- ORAS Project
- Product
- ORAS CLI
- Classifications
- CWE-835, CWE-400, CWE-674, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 25, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 27, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=< 1.3.3
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
- Cyclic referrer graph proof of conceptproof of concept · demonstrated
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
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