CVE-2022-31018

Denial of service binding form from JSON in Play Framework

HIGH
7.5
CVSS Score
Published: June 2, 2022 at 04:45 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 04:44 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsPlay FrameworkPlayframework

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Severity
HIGH7.5
Exploit prediction
EPSS 2%
SSVC
No known exploit

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.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

2.8.3 ≤ v ≤ 2.8.15
v < 2.8.16
Affected range stops below 2.8.16, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

References (3)

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitAutomatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

7.5HIGHGitHub_M
Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
LOW
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
NONE
Integrity
NONE
Availability
HIGH
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-400

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