---
id: CVE-2023-25656
aliases:
  - GHSA-87x9-7grx-m28v
  - GO-2023-1589
title: notation-go has excessive memory allocation on verification
summary: notation-go has excessive memory allocation on verification
severity: high
cvss: 7.5
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'
vendor: notaryproject
product: github.com/notaryproject/notation-go
ecosystem: go
affected:
  - github.com/notaryproject/notation-go < 1.0.0-rc.3
patched:
  - github.com/notaryproject/notation-go 1.0.0-rc.3
published: '2023-02-22'
updated: '2026-09-10'
sourceUpdated: '2026-09-10T03:49:51.900719541Z'
source: OSV
sourceUrl: 'https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-87x9-7grx-m28v'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/notaryproject/notation-go/security/advisories/GHSA-87x9-7grx-m28v
  - url: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-25656'
  - url: 'https://github.com/notaryproject/notation-go/pull/275'
  - url: 'https://github.com/notaryproject/notation-go'
  - url: 'https://github.com/notaryproject/notation-go/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.3'
tags:
  - osv
  - go
epss: 0.0044
epssPercentile: 0.37691
ingestedAt: '2026-09-12T03:13:01.766Z'
---

## Overview

### Impact

`notation-go` users will find their application using excessive memory when verifying signatures and the application will be finally killed, and thus availability is impacted.

### Patches

The problem has been patched in the release [v1.0.0-rc.3](https://github.com/notaryproject/notation-go/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.3). Users should upgrade their `notation-go` packages to `v1.0.0-rc.3` or above.

### Workarounds

Users can review their own trust policy file and check if the identity string contains `=#`. Meanwhile, users should only put trusted certificates in their trust stores referenced by their own trust policy files, and make sure the `authenticity` validation is set to `enforce`

### Credits

The `notation-go` project would like to thank Adam Korczynski (@AdamKorcz) for responsibly disclosing this issue during a security fuzzing audit sponsored by CNCF and Shiwei Zhang (@shizhMSFT) for root cause analysis and detailed vulnerability report.

### References

- [Resource exhaustion attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_exhaustion_attack)


## Affected packages

- `github.com/notaryproject/notation-go < 1.0.0-rc.3`

## Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

- `github.com/notaryproject/notation-go 1.0.0-rc.3`