CVE-2026-77354

kin-openapi is a Go project for handling OpenAPI files. From 0.124.0 until 0.142.0, openapi3filter.sliceMapToSlice in openapi3filter/req_resp_decoder.go converts attacker-controlled sparse indexes from a deepObject query parameter into a dense slice by allocating entries from zero through the largest supplied index, after which buildResObj creates another slice of the same length. This allocation occurs before schema validation, so maxItems does not prevent it. An unauthenticated client can send a small query such as param[items][50000000]=x to an endpoint whose deepObject schema contains an array, forcing multi-gigabyte heap allocation and causing an OOM kill or restart loop. Other request-body encodings and styled parameters that do not produce bracketed integer indexes are not affected. This issue is fixed in version 0.142.0.

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.

Affected Software

Potential Mitigations

• Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:

• The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.

• The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

Related Attack Patterns

• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
• https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html

References

• https://github.com/getkin/kin-openapi/commit/1223a0f215d2cf9beb2d9eb9ea2649d001c21388
• https://github.com/getkin/kin-openapi/pull/923
• https://github.com/getkin/kin-openapi/releases/tag/v0.142.0
• https://github.com/getkin/kin-openapi/security/advisories/GHSA-xhj3-7xw9-vr34