GHSA-v5pm-xwqc-g5wc: Microsoft.OpenAPI: Circular schema references may terminate OpenAPI parsing
Impact
A small OpenAPI document containing a circular schema reference can cause process termination through stack overflow in Microsoft.OpenApi. The issue affects OpenAPI document parsing through public OpenAPI.NET reader APIs and has been confirmed across both JSON and YAML reader paths.
Affected versions
- >= 2.0.0-preview.11, <= 2.7.4
- >= 3.0.0, <= 3.5.3
Patches
- For the 2.X major version, versions 2.7.5 and above are patched.
- For the 3.X major version, versions 3.5.4 and above are patched.
- For the 1.X major version, the issue does not apply since that version of the library *could not* resolve references that pointed to another reference.
Impact
Applications, CLIs, developer tools, or services that parse untrusted OpenAPI documents in-process may be terminated by a crafted OpenAPI document containing circular schema references.
The impact is availability/process termination only. This report does not claim remote code execution, authentication bypass, credential exposure, privilege escalation, data exposure, or Microsoft hosted service impact.
Details
A standalone isolated-process harness confirmed repeatable process termination through public OpenAPI.NET reader APIs. The issue reproduces in the affected released NuGet packages and affects both JSON and YAML reader paths.
A separate Microsoft-owned local consumer, microsoft/kiota, also reproduces the termination through the kiota show --openapi <file> workflow. That workflow parses OpenAPI files in-process using Microsoft.OpenApi and Microsoft.OpenApi.YamlReader.
Example payload
{
"openapi": "3.0.0",
"info": {
"title": "Test",
"version": "0.0.1"
},
"paths": {},
"components": {
"schemas": {
"A": {
"$ref": "#/components/schemas/B"
},
"B": {
"$ref": "#/components/schemas/A"
}
}
}
}
Remediation
Users should upgrade to
Details
Original advisory: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-v5pm-xwqc-g5wc
Exploitation outlook
EPSS (FIRST.org) estimates each CVE’s probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — here is the CSIRTS.com read on those numbers.
- Low exploitation riskCVE-2026-494510.69% 30-day exploitation probability — currently an unlikely target, but scores change as exploit code circulates. Riskier than 49% of all scored CVEs.
Referenced CVEs
| CVE | CSIRTS overview | External |
|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-49451 | coverage & exploitation status | NVD · CVE.org |
Same CVEs, other sources
How other CERTs, PSIRTs and databases cover the vulnerabilities in this advisory.
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