What is CVE-2018-3738?

CVE-2018-3738 is a medium-severity vulnerability in HackerOne Protobufjs Node Module, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2018-06-07.

How severe is CVE-2018-3738?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Is CVE-2018-3738 known to be exploited?

1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

Resource exhaustion in HackerOne Protobufjs Node Module

CVE-2018-3738

protobufjs is vulnerable to ReDoS when parsing crafted invalid .proto files.

Published 2018-06-07 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.010 (60.0th percentile), scored 2026-09-29.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 60th percentile — 60.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.010 · newest: 0.010 · change: 0.000

Affected products

HackerOne Protobufjs Node Module — versions Versions up to and including 6.8.5
Protobufjs Project

Weakness classification (CWE)

Public proof-of-concept exploits

ossf-cve-benchmark/CVE-2018-3738

References

hackerone.com/reports/319576 (Exploit, Third Party Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-3738?: CVE-2018-3738 is a medium-severity vulnerability in HackerOne Protobufjs Node Module, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2018-06-07.
How severe is CVE-2018-3738?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.
Is CVE-2018-3738 known to be exploited?: 1 public proof-of-concept repositories are indexed. Not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.