federation: Uncontrolled Recursion
CVE-2024-43414 is a high-severity uncontrolled recursion vulnerability in federation from Apollographql, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 out of 10. It can be exploited remotely over the network by an unauthenticated attacker, without any action from a user. The record lists versions 2.8.5, 1.52.1 as the first without the flaw, so updating federation to one of those releases or later removes the exposure. There is no confirmed exploitation so far. EPSS estimates a 0.99% chance of exploitation within 30 days, higher than 63% of scored CVEs.
High severity with no evidence of exploitation so far.
What to do
- Update federation to 2.8.5 or 1.52.1, whichever matches your release line, or a later version.
- Update Apollo-router to 1.52.1 or a later version.
- Update Apollo Gateway to 2.8.5 or a later version.
- Read the advisory on github.com for workarounds and exact fixed builds.
- Until you can update, restrict network access to the affected service so it is not reachable from untrusted networks.
Affected products and versions
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apollographql | federation | >= 2.0.0, < 2.8.5; < 1.52.1; 2.0.0 up to, but not including, 2.8.5; before 1.52.1 | 2.8.5, 1.52.1 |
| Apollographql | Apollo-router | before 1.52.1 | 1.52.1 |
| Apollographql | Apollo Gateway | 2.0.0 up to, but not including, 2.8.5 | 2.8.5 |
| Apollographql | Apollo Helms-charts Router | before 1.52.1 | 1.52.1 |
| Apollographql | Apollo Query-planner | 2.0.0 up to, but not including, 2.8.5 | 2.8.5 |
Version data comes from the organisation that assigned the CVE. Confirm against the vendor advisory before deciding you are unaffected.
How the severity score breaks down
- Attack vector
- NetworkCan be exploited remotely over a network, including the internet.
- Attack complexity
- LowNo special conditions are needed; the attack works reliably.
- Privileges required
- NoneNo account or login is needed.
- User interaction
- NoneNo action by a victim is required.
- Scope
- UnchangedImpact stays within the vulnerable component.
- Confidentiality
- NoneNo data is disclosed.
- Integrity
- NoneNothing can be modified.
- Availability
- HighThe component can be taken down completely.
Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. Scored by NVD.
| Scoring system | Score | Severity | Scored by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | 7.5 | High | CNA (github.com) |
| CVSS 3.1 | 7.5 | High | NVD |
Official description
Apollo Federation is an architecture for declaratively composing APIs into a unified graph. Each team can own their slice of the graph independently, empowering them to deliver autonomously and incrementally. Instances of @apollo/query-planner >=2.0.0 and <2.8.5 are impacted by a denial-of-service vulnerability. @apollo/gateway versions >=2.0.0 and < 2.8.5 and Apollo Router <1.52.1 are also impacted through their use of @apollo/query-panner. If @apollo/query-planner is asked to plan a sufficiently complex query, it may loop infinitely and never complete. This results in unbounded memory consumption and either a crash or out-of-memory (OOM) termination. This issue can be triggered if you have at least one non-@key field that can be resolved by multiple subgraphs. To identify these shared fields, the schema for each subgraph must be reviewed. The mechanism to identify shared fields varies based on the version of Federation your subgraphs are using. You can check if your subgraphs are using Federation 1 or Federation 2 by reviewing their schemas. Federation 2 subgraph schemas will contain a @link directive referencing the version of Federation being used while Federation 1 subgraphs will not. For example, in a Federation 2 subgraph, you will find a line like @link(url: "https://specs.apollo.dev/federation/v2.0"). If a similar @link directive is not present in your subgraph schema, it is using Federation 1. Note that a supergraph can contain a mix of Federation 1 and Federation 2 subgraphs. This issue results from the Apollo query planner attempting to use a Number exceeding Javascript’s Number.MAX_VALUE in some cases. In Javascript, Number.MAX_VALUE is (2^1024 - 2^971). When the query planner receives an inbound graphql request, it breaks the query into pieces and for each piece, generates a list of potential execution steps to solve the piece. These candidates represent the steps that the query planner will take to satisfy the pieces of the larger query. As part of normal operations, the query planner requires and calculates the number of possible query plans for the total query. That is, it needs the product of the number of query plan candidates for each piece of the query. Under normal circumstances, after generating all query plan candidates and calculating the number of all permutations, the query planner moves on to stack rank candidates and prune less-than-optimal options. In particularly complex queries, especially those where fields can be solved through multiple subgraphs, this can cause the number of all query plan permutations to balloon. In worst-case scenarios, this can end up being a number larger than Number.MAX_VALUE. In Javascript, if Number.MAX_VALUE is exceeded, Javascript represents the value as “infinity”. If the count of candidates is evaluated as infinity, the component of the query planner responsible for pruning less-than-optimal query plans does not actually prune candidates, causing the query planner to evaluate many orders of magnitude more query plan candidates than necessary. This issue has been addressed in @apollo/query-planner v2.8.5, @apollo/gateway v2.8.5, and Apollo Router v1.52.1. Users are advised to upgrade. This issue can be avoided by ensuring there are no fields resolvable from multiple subgraphs. If all subgraphs are using Federation 2, you can confirm that you are not impacted by ensuring that none of your subgraph schemas use the @shareable directive. If you are using Federation 1 subgraphs, you will need to validate that there are no fields resolvable by multiple subgraphs.
Source: the CVE record as published by its numbering authority, via NVD and CVE.org.
The underlying weakness: Uncontrolled Recursion
The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack.
How developers prevent this class of flaw
- Ensure that an end condition will be reached under all logic conditions. The end condition may include checking against the depth of recursion and exiting with an error if the recursion goes too deep. The complexity of the end condition contributes to the effectiveness of this action.
Timeline
- CVE record published.
- CISA published its SSVC assessment (exploitation: none, automatable: yes, technical impact: partial).
- Record last changed materially (score, affected products, status or references).
References
Other references
- apollographql.com/docs/federation/query-plansTechnical Description
- apollographql.com/docs/router/configuration/persisted-queriesTechnical Description
Other vulnerabilities in federation
- 7.5 High severity
- 7.5 High severity
- 7.5 High severity
Recent Uncontrolled Recursion vulnerabilities
- 7.5 High severity
- 7.8 High severity
- 7.5 High severity
- 7.5 High severity
- 7.5 High severity
- 7.5 High severity
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