README.md

metadata

tags:
  - security
  - proof-of-concept
  - protobuf
license: mit

Protocol Buffers Struct fields materialization DoS PoC

This repository contains a benign security research PoC for a .pb artifact that drives repeated map-entry materialization during struct_pb2.Struct.ParseFromString(...).

Files:

• control_one_struct_field.pb
• malicious_struct_fields_1000000.pb
• reproduce.py

Observed behavior:

• control artifact:
  • parses successfully with one struct field
• malicious artifact:
  • parses successfully with 1,000,000 struct fields
  • materially increases peak RSS during normal parse

Tested runtime:

python3 -m pip install protobuf==7.35.1