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Fencer Vulns
medium 6.3

CVE-2022-23628 json

Array literal misordering in github.com/open-policy-agent/opa

published 2022-02-09 4 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also GHSA-hcw3-j74m-qc58 , GO-2022-0316 , EUVD-2022-1041

cvss
6.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
1.0%
EPSS 1.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 63%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

OPA is an open source, general-purpose policy engine. Under certain conditions, pretty-printing an abstract syntax tree (AST) that contains synthetic nodes could change the logic of some statements by reordering array literals. Example of policies impacted are those that parse and compare web paths. **All of these** three conditions have to be met to create an adverse effect: 1. An AST of Rego had to be **created programmatically** such that it ends up containing terms without a location (such as wildcard variables). 2. The AST had to be **pretty-printed** using the `github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/format` package. 3. The result of the pretty-printing had to be **parsed and evaluated again** via an OPA instance using the bundles, or the Golang packages. If any of these three conditions are not met, you are not affected. Notably, all three would be true if using **optimized bundles**, i.e. bundles created with `opa build -O=1` or higher. In that case, the optimizer would fulfil condition (1.), the result of that would be pretty-printed when writing the bundle to disk, fulfilling (2.). When the bundle was then used, we'd satisfy (3.). As a workaround users may disable optimization when creating bundles.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/open-policy-agent/opa 0.37.2
  • openpolicyagent open_policy_agent 0.37.0

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
18 mo ago

Exploit prediction

1.03% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 63% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/security/advisories/GHSA-hcw3-j74m-qc58 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 6.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L
NVD 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
NVD 2.0 4.3 AV:N/AC:M/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
GitHub 3.1 6.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/open-policy-agent/opa
>=0.33.1, <0.37.2
0.37.2

Affected products

  • open-policy-agent opa

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.