Denial of service binding form from JSON in Play Framework
Impact
A denial-of-service vulnerability has been discovered in Play's forms library, in both the Scala and Java APIs. This can occur when using either the Form#bindFromRequest method on a JSON request body or the Form#bind method directly on a JSON value. If the JSON data being bound to the form contains a deeply-nested JSON object or array, the form binding implementation may consume all available heap space and cause an OutOfMemoryError. If executing on the default dispatcher and akka.jvm-exit-on-fatal-error is enabled—as it is by default—then this can crash the application process.
Form.bindFromRequest is vulnerable when using any body parser that produces a type of AnyContent or JsValue in Scala, or one that can produce a JsonNode in Java. This includes Play's default body parser.
Patches
This vulnerability been patched in version 2.8.16. There is now a global limit on the depth of a JSON object that can be parsed, which can be configured by the user if necessary.
Workarounds
Applications that do not need to parse a request body of type application/json can switch from the default body parser to another body parser that supports only the specific type of body they expect; for example, the formUrlEncoded body parser can be used if the Play action only needs to accept application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
Affected software
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| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Java / Kotlin (Maven) | com.typesafe.play:play_2.12 | >= 2.8.3, < 2.8.16 | 2.8.16 |
| Java / Kotlin (Maven) | com.typesafe.play:play_2.13 | >= 2.8.3, < 2.8.16 | 2.8.16 |
References
- https://github.com/playframework/playframework/security/advisories/GHSA-v8x6-59g4-5g3w
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-31018
- https://github.com/playframework/playframework/pull/11301
- https://github.com/playframework/playframework
- https://github.com/playframework/playframework/releases/tag/2.8.16
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-400- Platform
- Java / Kotlin (Maven)
- Package
com.typesafe.play:play_2.12, com.typesafe.play:play_2.13- Disclosed
- 03.06.2022
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 11:21
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-v8x6-59g4-5g3w - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: com.typesafe.play:play_2.12
All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 4
- First → latest
- 08.2020 06.2022
- Without a fix
- 0
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- High 2
- Medium 2
Disclosures per year
- 2020: 1
- 2021: 0
- 2022: 3
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 0
- 2025: 0
- 2026: 0
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Denial of service binding form from JSON in Play Framework this entry
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