Vulnerability-Lookup

CVE-2026-55588 (GCVE-0-2026-55588)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-08-25 20:32 – Updated: 2026-08-27 14:35

Title

ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption

Summary

ORAS (OCI Registry As Storage) is a CLI and library for managing artifacts in OCI registries. In ORAS CLI versions up to and including 1.3.2, the recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a malicious OCI registry that returns a cyclic referrer graph causes unbounded recursion and memory growth. This affects oras discover, whose recursive traversal is enabled by default because the --depth option defaults to 0 (unlimited), as well as the recursive referrer counting used by the oras backup and oras restore workflows. A cyclic graph can be as simple as A referring to B and B referring back to A. A malicious registry can use this to cause a client-side denial of service, exhausting CPU and memory and hanging automation or CI/CD pipelines that run ORAS against untrusted registry metadata. The vulnerability does not extend to code execution, artifact substitution, or integrity bypass. This issue has been fixed in version 1.3.3.

Severity

6.5 (Medium)


                        
                          CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

SSVC

Exploitation: none Automatable: no Technical Impact: partial

CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)

Decision recorded 2026-08-27 13:52 UTC

CWE

CWE-400 - Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CWE-674 - Uncontrolled Recursion
CWE-835 - Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')

Assigner

GitHub_M mitre root

References

2 references

URL	Tags
https://github.com/oras-project/oras/security/adv…	x_refsource_CONFIRM
https://github.com/oras-project/oras/commit/440eb…	x_refsource_MISC

Impacted products

1 product

Vendor	Product	Version	CPE status
oras-project	oras	Affected: < 1.3.3	guessed

Show details on NVD website

JSON

To clipboard

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FKIE_CVE-2026-55588

Vulnerability from fkie_nvd - Published: 2026-08-25 21:17 - Updated: 2026-08-27 17:18

Severity

6.5 (Medium) - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Summary

References

	URL	Tags
	security-advisories@github.com	https://github.com/oras-project/oras/commit/440eb65d07a0631f131944d28e7c29d562ec17f3
	security-advisories@github.com	https://github.com/oras-project/oras/security/advisories/GHSA-298f-872v-2rcx

Impacted products

	Vendor	Product	Version

JSON

To clipboard

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "affectedData": [
        {
          "product": "oras",
          "vendor": "oras-project",
          "versions": [
            {
              "status": "affected",
              "version": "\u003c 1.3.3"
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "source": "security-advisories@github.com"
    }
  ],
  "cveTags": [],
  "descriptions": [
    {
      "lang": "en",
      "value": "ORAS (OCI Registry As Storage) is a CLI and library for managing artifacts in OCI registries. In ORAS CLI versions up to and including 1.3.2, the recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a malicious OCI registry that returns a cyclic referrer graph causes unbounded recursion and memory growth. This affects oras discover, whose recursive traversal is enabled by default because the --depth option defaults to 0 (unlimited), as well as the recursive referrer counting used by the oras backup and oras restore workflows. A cyclic graph can be as simple as A referring to B and B referring back to A. A malicious registry can use this to cause a client-side denial of service, exhausting CPU and memory and hanging automation or CI/CD pipelines that run ORAS against untrusted registry metadata. The vulnerability does not extend to code execution, artifact substitution, or integrity bypass. This issue has been fixed in version 1.3.3."
    }
  ],
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  "lastModified": "2026-08-27T17:18:49.220",
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}

GHSA-298F-872V-2RCX

Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-08-28 18:19 – Updated: 2026-08-28 18:19

Summary

ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption

Details

Summary

A malicious OCI registry can return a cyclic referrer graph (e.g. A -> A or A -> B -> A). The ORAS CLI's recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a cycle causes unbounded recursion and memory growth — a client-side denial of service.

This affects oras discover (recursive referrer traversal) and the recursive referrer counting used by oras backup and oras restore. Because oras discover --depth defaults to 0 (unlimited), discover is affected out of the box.

Note: This advisory covers only the ORAS CLI (oras.land/oras). The related Referrers API pagination loop in the oras-go library is tracked in a separate advisory on the oras-go repository.

Details

In oras discover, recursive referrer traversal follows discovered referrers without maintaining a visited-descriptor set.

Simplified flow:

runDiscover
  -> fetchAllReferrers(root)
     -> registry.Referrers(root)
     -> for each referrer:
          fetchAllReferrers(referrer)

A malicious registry can create cyclic graphs such as:

A -> A

A -> B -> A

Because traversal does not track previously visited descriptors, recursion never reaches a terminating condition.

Similarly, the recursive counting logic (graph.RecursiveFindReferrers, used by the backup and restore workflows) accumulates descriptors without cycle detection, causing unbounded memory growth.

PoC

Create valid descriptors where:

referrers(A) = [A]

or:

referrers(A) = [B]
referrers(B) = [A]

Run:

oras discover attacker.local/repo@sha256:<A>

The recursive traversal continues indefinitely, causing unbounded recursion and eventual resource exhaustion.

Impact

A malicious OCI registry can trigger client-side denial of service against ORAS CLI users and automation.

Potential impacts include:

Excessive CPU utilization
Excessive memory consumption
Unbounded recursion
Hung CI/CD jobs
Stalled automation pipelines
Failed backup or discovery operations

The issue does not enable arbitrary code execution, artifact substitution, or integrity bypass, but it can reliably prevent ORAS operations from completing when interacting with malicious registry metadata.

Patch

cmd/oras/root/discover.go — fetchAllReferrers threads a visited digest set; an already-traversed descriptor returns immediately, breaking cycles. Behavior is unchanged for valid (acyclic) referrer graphs.
internal/graph/graph.go — RecursiveFindReferrers tracks visited descriptors by digest and only recurses into unseen referrers, so traversal terminates on a cyclic graph.

Severity

2.0 (Low)


                  
                    CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Show details on source website

JSON

To clipboard

{
  "affected": [
    {
      "package": {
        "ecosystem": "Go",
        "name": "oras.land/oras"
      },
      "ranges": [
        {
          "events": [
            {
              "introduced": "0"
            },
            {
              "fixed": "1.3.3"
            }
          ],
          "type": "ECOSYSTEM"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "aliases": [
    "CVE-2026-55588"
  ],
  "database_specific": {
    "cwe_ids": [
      "CWE-400",
      "CWE-674",
      "CWE-835"
    ],
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2026-08-28T18:19:15Z",
    "nvd_published_at": "2026-08-25T21:17:02Z",
    "severity": "LOW"
  },
  "details": "### Summary\n\nA malicious OCI registry can return a **cyclic referrer graph** (e.g. `A -\u003e A` or `A -\u003e B -\u003e A`). The ORAS CLI\u0027s recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a cycle causes unbounded recursion and memory growth \u2014 a client-side denial of service.\n\nThis affects `oras discover` (recursive referrer traversal) and the recursive referrer counting used by `oras backup` and `oras restore`. Because `oras discover --depth` defaults to `0` (unlimited), `discover` is affected out of the box.\n\n\u003e **Note:** This advisory covers only the **ORAS CLI** (`oras.land/oras`). The related Referrers API pagination loop in the `oras-go` library is tracked in a separate advisory on the [oras-go](https://github.com/oras-project/oras-go) repository.\n\n### Details\n\nIn `oras discover`, recursive referrer traversal follows discovered referrers without maintaining a visited-descriptor set.\n\nSimplified flow:\n\n```text\nrunDiscover\n  -\u003e fetchAllReferrers(root)\n     -\u003e registry.Referrers(root)\n     -\u003e for each referrer:\n          fetchAllReferrers(referrer)\n```\n\nA malicious registry can create cyclic graphs such as:\n\n```text\nA -\u003e A\n```\n\nor\n\n```text\nA -\u003e B -\u003e A\n```\n\nBecause traversal does not track previously visited descriptors, recursion never reaches a terminating condition.\n\nSimilarly, the recursive counting logic (`graph.RecursiveFindReferrers`, used by the `backup` and `restore` workflows) accumulates descriptors without cycle detection, causing unbounded memory growth.\n\n### PoC\n\nCreate valid descriptors where:\n\n```text\nreferrers(A) = [A]\n```\n\nor:\n\n```text\nreferrers(A) = [B]\nreferrers(B) = [A]\n```\n\nRun:\n\n```bash\noras discover attacker.local/repo@sha256:\u003cA\u003e\n```\n\nThe recursive traversal continues indefinitely, causing unbounded recursion and eventual resource exhaustion.\n\n### Impact\n\nA malicious OCI registry can trigger client-side denial of service against ORAS CLI users and automation.\n\nPotential impacts include:\n\n- Excessive CPU utilization\n- Excessive memory consumption\n- Unbounded recursion\n- Hung CI/CD jobs\n- Stalled automation pipelines\n- Failed backup or discovery operations\n\nThe issue does not enable arbitrary code execution, artifact substitution, or integrity bypass, but it can reliably prevent ORAS operations from completing when interacting with malicious registry metadata.\n\n### Patch\n\n- `cmd/oras/root/discover.go` \u2014 `fetchAllReferrers` threads a `visited` digest set; an already-traversed descriptor returns immediately, breaking cycles. Behavior is unchanged for valid (acyclic) referrer graphs.\n- `internal/graph/graph.go` \u2014 `RecursiveFindReferrers` tracks visited descriptors by digest and only recurses into unseen referrers, so traversal terminates on a cyclic graph.",
  "id": "GHSA-298f-872v-2rcx",
  "modified": "2026-08-28T18:19:15Z",
  "published": "2026-08-28T18:19:15Z",
  "references": [
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/oras-project/oras/security/advisories/GHSA-298f-872v-2rcx"
    },
    {
      "type": "ADVISORY",
      "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-55588"
    },
    {
      "type": "WEB",
      "url": "https://github.com/oras-project/oras/commit/440eb65d07a0631f131944d28e7c29d562ec17f3"
    },
    {
      "type": "PACKAGE",
      "url": "https://github.com/oras-project/oras"
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": "1.4.0",
  "severity": [
    {
      "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L",
      "type": "CVSS_V3"
    }
  ],
  "summary": "ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption"
}

Sightings

Author	Source	Type	Date	Other

Nomenclature

Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.

Detection rules are retrieved from Rulezet.

The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base model, served locally by ML-Gateway. They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.

Action not permitted

CVE-2026-55588 (GCVE-0-2026-55588)

FKIE_CVE-2026-55588

GHSA-298F-872V-2RCX

Summary

Details

PoC

Impact

Patch

Tags

Sightings

Nomenclature