Vulnerability in buffa (CVE-2026-55407)
Summary
Vulnerability in buffa (CVE-2026-55407). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Exploitable via decode_unknown_field. Mitigation: upgrade to 0.8.0 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
The decode_unknown_field function in buffa's protobuf decoder allocated heap memory in proportion to untrusted input (unknown fields in the serialized protobuf) without enforcing an allocation budget. Any message decoded from untrusted input using code generated with preserve_unknown_fields=true (the default) was affected. A small, well-formed payload of nested unknown fields inside a StartGroup could trigger roughly 22× memory amplification (e.g., a 64 MiB input forcing ~1.4 GB of heap allocation), and length-delimited unknown fields could be sized arbitrarily, enabling an unauthenticated attacker to crash a process via memory exhaustion. This was reachable from the default decode APIs, since the top-level message size cap did not account for in-decode amplification.
For users of connectrpc - the DEFAULT_MAX_MESSAGE_SIZE for connectrpc is 4MiB, which limits amplification in the worst case to ~88 MiB of memory. A flood of concurrent requests with this pattern could still be used to exhaust available memory, however.
Users are advised to either set preserve_unknown_fields=false on their current generated code, or upgrade to 0.8.0, which enforces per-message unknown field count limits - this is configurable, with a default of 1 million unknown fields, or ~40MiB of allocation overhead per message.
Users are advised to update to the latest version, which enforces per-message unknown field count limits.
Thank you to @p80n-sec for reporting this issue.
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-2026-55407 has been found in buffa.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like decode_unknown_field over the network to misuse the product.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade buffa to 0.8.0 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "buffa CVE-2026-55407" on the vendor's site.
CVE-2026-55407 (buffa) — CWE-400
Attack surface: decode_unknown_field
Patched: 0.8.0 — 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-400) exists in buffa. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via decode_unknown_field.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of buffa. Attack surface: decode_unknown_field.
Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to 0.8.0.
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 'buffa' . 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
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1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'buffa' . | 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
buffa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 buffa to 0.8.0ステージング環境で 0.8.0 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 nvd.nist.gov
- package github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com
- web github.com