README.md

metadata

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

Protocol Buffers MetricDescriptor monitored_resource_types materialization DoS PoC

This repository contains a benign security research PoC for a protobuf binary artifact that drives large repeated-string materialization during google.api.metric_pb2.MetricDescriptor.ParseFromString(...).

Files:

• control_one_display_name.pb
• malicious_monitored_resource_types_6000000.pb
• reproduce.py

Observed behavior:

• control artifact:
  • parses successfully with zero monitored_resource_types
• malicious artifact:
  • both files are 12,000,000 bytes
  • parses successfully with 6,000,000 monitored_resource_types entries
  • increases peak RSS by about 213988 kB in local clean-process replay
  • takes about 15.42x the control parse time

Tested runtime:

• protobuf==7.35.1
• Python: /usr/bin/python3

Public files:

• https://huggingface.co/hacnho/protobuf-metricdescriptor-monitored-resource-types-dos-poc/resolve/main/control_one_display_name.pb
• https://huggingface.co/hacnho/protobuf-metricdescriptor-monitored-resource-types-dos-poc/resolve/main/malicious_monitored_resource_types_6000000.pb
• https://huggingface.co/hacnho/protobuf-metricdescriptor-monitored-resource-types-dos-poc/resolve/main/reproduce.py

Reproduction:

python3 reproduce.py