GHSA-rvv3-g6hj-g44x
AutoMapper Vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) via Uncontrolled Recursion
Details
### Summary
AutoMapper is vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. When mapping deeply nested object graphs, the library uses recursive method calls without enforcing a default maximum depth limit. This allows an attacker to provide a specially crafted object graph that exhausts the thread's stack memory, triggering a `StackOverflowException` and causing the entire application process to terminate.
### Description
The vulnerability exists in the core mapping engine. When a source object contains a property of the same type (or a type that eventually points back to itself), AutoMapper recursively attempts to map each level.
Because there is no default limit on how many levels deep this recursion can go, a sufficiently nested object (approximately 25,000+ levels in standard .NET environments) will exceed the stack size. Since `StackOverflowException` cannot be caught in modern .NET runtimes, the application cannot recover and will crash immediately.
### Impact
* **Availability:** An attacker can crash the application server, leading to a complete Denial of Service. * **Process Termination:** Unlike standard exceptions, this terminates the entire process, not just the individual request thread.
### Proof of Concept (PoC)
The following C# code demonstrates the crash by creating a nested "Circular" object graph and attempting to map it:
```csharp class Circular { public Circular Self { get; set; } }
// Setup configuration var config = new MapperConfiguration(cfg => { cfg.CreateMap<Circular, Circular>(); }); var mapper = config.CreateMapper();
// Create a deeply nested object (28,000+ levels) var root = new Circular(); var current = root; for (int i = 0; i < 30000; i++) { current.Self = new Circular(); current = current.Self; }
// This call triggers the StackOverflowException and crashes the process mapper.Map<Circular>(root);
```
### Recommended Mitigation
1. **Secure Defaults:** Implement a default `MaxDepth` (e.g., 32 or 64) for all mapping operations. 2. **Configurable Limit:** Allow users to increase this limit if necessary, but ensure it is enabled by default to protect unsuspecting developers.
Are you affected?
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Affected packages
16.0.0 Fixed in: 16.1.1 dotnet add package AutoMapper --version 16.1.1 0 Fixed in: 15.1.1 dotnet add package AutoMapper --version 15.1.1 References
- https://github.com/LuckyPennySoftware/AutoMapper/security/advisories/GHSA-rvv3-g6hj-g44x [WEB]
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-32933 [ADVISORY]
- https://github.com/LuckyPennySoftware/AutoMapper/commit/0afaf1e91648fca1a57512e94dd00a76ee016816 [WEB]
- https://github.com/LuckyPennySoftware/AutoMapper [PACKAGE]
- https://github.com/LuckyPennySoftware/AutoMapper/discussions/4624 [WEB]
- https://github.com/LuckyPennySoftware/AutoMapper/releases/tag/v15.1.1 [WEB]
- https://github.com/LuckyPennySoftware/AutoMapper/releases/tag/v16.1.1 [WEB]