Vulnerability in surrealdb (CVE-2025-71397)
Summary
Vulnerability in surrealdb (CVE-2025-71397). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Exploitable via OWNER. Mitigation: upgrade to 2.0.5 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
SurrealDB allows authenticated users with OWNER or EDITOR permissions at the root, database or namespace levels to define their own database functions using the DEFINE FUNCTION statement
A custom database function comprises a name together with a function body. In the function body, the user programs the functionality of the function in terms of SurrealQL. The language includes a FOR keyword, used to implement for-loops.
Whilst the parser and interpreter constrain the number of iterations for a single for-loop, nesting several for-loops with a large number of iterations is possible. Thus, an attacker could define a function that comprises several nested for-loops with an iteration count of 1.000.000 each.
Executing the function will consume all the CPU time of the server, timeouts configured will not break the CPU consumption, and the function execution monopolizes all CPU time of the SurrealDB server, effectively preventing the server from executing functions, queries, commands of other users, or allowing further connections being established to the server.
Terminating the stuck server requires manual intervention which forces a quit on the server process, as the server application is not responsive any longer.
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 high, matched by our CVSS v4 assessment.
Impact
Denial of Service vulnerability resul…
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database NVD GitHub Advisory
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-71397 has been found in surrealdb.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like OWNER over the network to misuse the product.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. CVSS score: 6.5/10.
What to do: upgrade surrealdb to 2.0.5 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "surrealdb CVE-2025-71397" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2025-71397 (surrealdb) — CWE-835 / CVSS v3 6.5
Attack vector: remote (network-reachable) / no user interaction
Attack surface: OWNER / EDITOR / FOR / ForEachStatement
Patched: 2.0.5 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (CWE-835) exists in surrealdb. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via OWNER.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of surrealdb. Attack surface: OWNER / EDITOR / FOR / ForEachStatement.
Severity: Medium (CVSS 6.5/10). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to 2.0.5.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'surrealdb' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
-
1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'surrealdb' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
surrealdbを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Apply patch patch
Upgrade surrealdb to 2.0.5ステージング環境で 2.0.5 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
-
3Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Affected packages
References
- advisory disclosure@vulncheck.com
- package github.com
- web github.com
- web nvd.nist.gov
- web github.com
- web github.com