README.md

metadata

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

Protocol Buffers FileDescriptorProto option_dependency string materialization DoS PoC

This repository contains a benign security research PoC for a .pb artifact that drives repeated-string materialization during descriptor_pb2.FileDescriptorProto.ParseFromString(...).

Files:

• control_one_dependency.pb
• malicious_option_dependency_5000000.pb
• reproduce.py

Observed behavior:

• control artifact:
  • parses successfully with one dependency
• malicious artifact:
  • parses successfully with 5,000,000 empty option_dependency strings
  • materially increases peak RSS during normal parse

Tested runtime:

python3 -m pip install protobuf==7.35.1