GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh: Directus Denial of Service Vulnerability

HIGH
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CVSS 7.5
CWE-400 CWE-770
Published
Advisory Summary

GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh is a HIGH (CVSS 7.5) denial of service vulnerability (CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) affecting Directus libraries in the npm ecosystem. The issue involves unauthenticated denial of service via graphql alias amplification of expensive health check resolver. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 11.17.0.

GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh at a Glance

CVE Identifier N/A
GHSA Identifier GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh
Severity HIGH
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 7.5
CWE Classification CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
Affected Product Directus
Package Ecosystem npm
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 7.5

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality None (C:N)
Integrity None (I:N)
Availability High (A:H)

How to Fix GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Directus dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

directus fixed: 11.17.0 
npm install directus@11.17.0
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release: 

npm ls directus

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your Node.js application is affected by GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh, inspect your project dependencies using npm:

npm ls directus

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Directus in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 11.17.0), your application is affected.

Note: The npm ls directus command inspects dependencies declared in your package.json and lockfile; it does not perform automated runtime dynamic scanning.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, where the product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource. In Directus, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

## Summary The GraphQL specification permits a single query to repeat the same field multiple times using aliases, with each alias resolved independently by default. Directus did not deduplicate resolver invocations within a single request, meaning each alias triggered a full, independent execution of the underlying resolver. The health check resolver ran all backend checks (database connectivity, cache, storage writes, and SMTP verification) on every invocation. Combined with unauthenticated access to the system GraphQL endpoint, this allowed an attacker to amplify resource consumption significantly from a single HTTP request, exhausting the database connection pool, storage I/O, and SMTP connections. ## Fix A request-scoped resolver deduplication mechanism was introduced and applied broadly across all GraphQL read resolvers, both system and items endpoints. When multiple aliases in a single request invoke the same resolver with identical arguments, only the first call executes; all subsequent aliases share its result. This eliminates the amplification factor regardless of how many aliases an attacker includes in a query. ## Impact - **Service degradation or outage:** Database connection pool exhaustion prevents all Directus operations for all users - **Storage I/O saturation:** Concurrent file writes can overwhelm disk I/O - **SMTP resource exhaustion:** Concurrent SMTP verification calls may overwhelm the mail server - **No authentication required:** Any network-accessible attacker can trigger this condition - **Single-request impact:** A single request is sufficient to cause significant resource consumption ## Credit This vulnerability was discovered and reported by [bugbunny.ai](https://bugbunny.ai).

GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh Affected Directus Versions

1 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
11.17.0
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
directus
npm/directus
npm
< 11.17.0
11.17.0

References

GitHub Advisory / Wiki ADVISORY
https://github.com/directus/directus/security/advisories/GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh
Directus Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/directus/directus

Frequently Asked Questions

What is GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh?
GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh is a security vulnerability in Directus involving Unauthenticated Denial of Service via GraphQL Alias Amplification of Expensive Health Check Resolver under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption.
Which Directus versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 11.17.0 across affected packages: directus.
What version fixes GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh?
Upgrading to 11.17.0 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is directus affected?
Yes, directus is affected in releases prior to 11.17.0. Upgrade your dependency to 11.17.0 or later.
What is the CVSS score of GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh?
GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH) with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
What CWE is associated with GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh?
GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh is classified under CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.).
How can I check npm dependencies for GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh?
Run the dependency tree command: 'npm ls directus'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
View Raw JSON 
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh",
  "modified" : "2026-04-04T06:13:25Z",
  "published" : "2026-04-04T06:13:25Z",
  "aliases" : [ ],
  "summary" : "Directus: Unauthenticated Denial of Service via GraphQL Alias Amplification of Expensive Health Check Resolver",
  "details" : "## Summary\n\nThe GraphQL specification permits a single query to repeat the same field multiple times using aliases, with each alias resolved independently by default. Directus did not deduplicate resolver invocations within a single request, meaning each alias triggered a full, independent execution of the underlying resolver.\n\nThe health check resolver ran all backend checks (database connectivity, cache, storage writes, and SMTP verification) on every invocation. Combined with unauthenticated access to the system GraphQL endpoint, this allowed an attacker to amplify resource consumption significantly from a single HTTP request, exhausting the database connection pool, storage I/O, and SMTP connections.\n\n## Fix\n\nA request-scoped resolver deduplication mechanism was introduced and applied broadly across all GraphQL read resolvers, both system and items endpoints. When multiple aliases in a single request invoke the same resolver with identical arguments, only the first call executes; all subsequent aliases share its result. This eliminates the amplification factor regardless of how many aliases an attacker includes in a query.\n\n## Impact\n\n- **Service degradation or outage:** Database connection pool exhaustion prevents all Directus operations for all users\n- **Storage I/O saturation:** Concurrent file writes can overwhelm disk I/O\n- **SMTP resource exhaustion:** Concurrent SMTP verification calls may overwhelm the mail server\n- **No authentication required:** Any network-accessible attacker can trigger this condition\n- **Single-request impact:** A single request is sufficient to cause significant resource consumption\n\n## Credit\n\nThis vulnerability was discovered and reported by [bugbunny.ai](https://bugbunny.ai).",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "npm",
      "name" : "directus"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "11.17.0"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/directus/directus/security/advisories/GHSA-6q22-g298-grjh"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/directus/directus"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-400", "CWE-770" ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2026-04-04T06:13:25Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : null
  }
}