CVE-2022-31116

Incorrect handling of invalid surrogate pair characters

Workarounds

Is there a way for users to fix or remediate the vulnerability without upgrading?

Short of switching to an entirely different JSON library, there are no safe alternatives to upgrading.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:

• Open an issue in UltraJSON

What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted?

Anyone parsing JSON from an untrusted source is vulnerable.

JSON strings that contain escaped surrogate characters not part of a proper surrogate pair were decoded incorrectly. Besides corrupting strings, this allowed for potential key confusion and value overwriting in dictionaries.

Examples:

# An unpaired high surrogate character is ignored.
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uD800"')
''
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uD800hello"')
'hello'

# An unpaired low surrogate character is preserved.
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uDC00"')
'\udc00'

# A pair of surrogates with additional non surrogate characters pair up in spite of being invalid.
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uD800foo bar\uDC00"')
'foo bar𐀀'

CVE-2022-31116 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (5.4.0); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.

Kodem intelligence

Already deployed Kodem?

Has the problem been patched? What versions should users upgrade to?

Users should upgrade to UltraJSON 5.4.0.

From version 5.4.0, UltraJSON decodes lone surrogates in the same way as the standard library's json module does, preserving them in the parsed output:

>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uD800"')
'\ud800'
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uD800hello"')
'\ud800hello'
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uDC00"')
'\udc00'
>>> ujson.loads(r'"\uD800foo bar\uDC00"')
'\ud800foo bar\udc00'

1. What is CVE-2022-31116? CVE-2022-31116 is a high-severity security vulnerability in ujson (pip), affecting versions < 5.4.0. It is fixed in 5.4.0.
2. How severe is CVE-2022-31116? CVE-2022-31116 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
3. Which versions of ujson are affected by CVE-2022-31116? ujson (pip) versions < 5.4.0 is affected.
4. Is there a fix for CVE-2022-31116? Yes. CVE-2022-31116 is fixed in 5.4.0. Upgrade to this version or later.
5. Is CVE-2022-31116 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-31116 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
6. What actually determines whether CVE-2022-31116 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
7. How do I fix CVE-2022-31116? Upgrade ujson to 5.4.0 or later.

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