ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption (CVE-2026-55588) | HOL Guard CVE

Unknown severity · Source severity not reportedCVE-2026-55588

ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption

Answer in brief

CVE-2026-55588 records a Unknown severity vulnerability in ORAS CLI: Cyclic Referrer Graph Can Cause Unbounded Recursion and Resource Consumption. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps oras-project/oras (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Analysis pending evidence review

HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.

Published Aug 25, 2026Updated Aug 25, 2026Source checked Aug 25, 2026First seen by HOL Aug 25, 2026Material review Aug 25, 2026

Upstream Advisory

Key facts

Risk: Unknown severitySource severity not reported
Exploitation: Not marked as known exploited
Affected software: 1 mapped package or product
Fix availability: Not reported

Why this deserves its current priority

A CVSS score is not reported in the current record. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.

Analysis status

Analysis pending evidence review

Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.

Affected scope and exposure questions

The current feed maps oras-project/oras (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.

Mapped affected packages and fixed versions
Package	Affected range	Fixed version
oras-project/orasgeneric	< 1.3.3	Not reported

Recommended response

Check inventory. Check lockfiles and deployed manifests for oras-project/oras.
Review the reported fix. Monitor this advisory for an available fix and review any installs of the affected package.

Evidence timeline and material changes

Published upstream
Aug 25, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
Source modified
Aug 25, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:record
First seen by HOL
Aug 25, 2026

Sources and claim methodology

Upstream source description

ORAS (OCI Registry As Storage) is a CLI and library for managing artifacts in OCI registries. In ORAS CLI versions up to and including 1.3.2, the recursive referrer traversal does not track visited descriptors, so a malicious OCI registry that returns a cyclic referrer graph causes unbounded recursion and memory growth. This affects oras discover, whose recursive traversal is enabled by default because the --depth option defaults to 0 (unlimited), as well as the recursive referrer counting used by the oras backup and oras restore workflows. A cyclic graph can be as simple as A referring to B and B referring back to A. A malicious registry can use this to cause a client-side denial of service, exhausting CPU and memory and hanging automation or CI/CD pipelines that run ORAS against untrusted registry metadata. The vulnerability does not extend to code execution, artifact substitution, or integrity bypass. This issue has been fixed in version 1.3.3.

Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.