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PocketMine-MP allows malicious client data to waste server resources due to lack of limits for explode() — pocketmine / pocketmine-mp

Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Impact

Due to lack of limits by default in the explode() function, malicious clients were able to abuse some packets to waste server CPU and memory.

This is similar to a previous security issue published in https://github.com/pmmp/PocketMine-MP/security/advisories/GHSA-gj94-v4p9-w672, but with a wider impact, including but not limited to:

  • Sign editing
  • LoginPacket JWT parsing
  • Command parsing

However, the estimated impact of these issues is low, due to other limits such as the packet decompression limit.

Patches

The issue was fixed in 5.25.2 via d0d84d4c5195fb0a68ea7725424fda63b85cd831.

A custom PHPStan rule has also been introduced to the project, which will henceforth require that all calls to explode() within the codebase must specify the limit parameter.

Workarounds

No simple way to fix this. Given that sign editing is the easiest way this could be exploited, workarounds could include plugins pre-processing BlockActorDataPacket to check that the incoming text doesn't have more than 4 parts when split by \n.

  • Published: Mar 10, 2025
  • Updated: Apr 30, 2025
  • GHSA: GHSA-g274-c6jj-h78p
  • Severity: Medium
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: Medium
  • Score: 5.3
  • AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CWEs:

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A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

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