GHSA-xvcm-6775-5m9r: Immutabl: Hash-collision algorithmic complexity denial of service in Immutable.Map/Set
Summary
Immutable.Map and Immutable.Set keep keys that share the same 32-bit hash in a collision bucket that is scanned linearly. The string hash is public and deterministic, so an attacker who controls the keys inserted into a Map can craft many keys that all collide, degrading insertion and lookup from amortized O(1) to O(n) per operation — and O(n²) to build or read the whole set. A small, attacker-shaped payload can therefore consume disproportionate CPU and, on a single-threaded runtime such as Node.js, stall the event loop and deny service.
Details
The string hash uses the JVM-style polynomial hashed = (31 * hashed + charCode) | 0. Strings such as "Aa" and "BB" hash to the same value (65*31+97 == 66*31+66 == 2112), and concatenating such blocks yields 2^n distinct strings sharing one hash (40 characters ⇒ >1,000,000 colliding keys).
All such keys route to a single HashCollisionNode, whose get/update walk the entire bucket testing is(). There is no per-process salt, so the colliding set is fully precomputable from the open-source algorithm.
Proof of concept
Inserting N colliding keys (e.g. via Immutable.Map(obj) / Immutable.fromJS(obj)) is O(N²). Measured on one machine, ~8,000 colliding
keys take ~0.7 s to build and ~0.6 s to read, scaling ×4 per doubling; ~16,000 keys exceed several seconds.
Impact
CPU-bound denial of service in applications that ingest attacker-controlled object keys into Immutable structures, e.g. Immutable.Map(req.body), Immutable.fromJS(req.body), state.merge(userObject) / mergeDeep(...). Applications that only store attacker input as values under fixed keys are not affected.
Affected versions
All versions through 5.1.7 (the deterministic string hash and linear collision bucket have existed since the 4.x line).
Patches
Fixed in 5.1.8 _(adjust to the actual release)_: large collision buckets are indexed by a per-process seeded secondary hash, restoring near-linear behavior for the affected paths. The public hash() is unchanged (
Details
Original advisory: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-xvcm-6775-5m9r
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-2026-598800.43% 30-day exploitation probability — currently an unlikely target, but scores change as exploit code circulates. Riskier than 36% of all scored CVEs.
Referenced CVEs
| CVE | CSIRTS overview | External |
|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-59880 | 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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