---
id: GHSA-5x78-73v4-xg6w
title: >-
  postgres-protocol: Unbounded SCRAM iteration count allows a malicious server
  to cause CPU-exhaustion denial of service
summary: >-
  postgres-protocol: Unbounded SCRAM iteration count allows a malicious server
  to cause CPU-exhaustion denial of service
severity: high
cwe:
  - CWE-770
vendor: postgres-protocol
product: postgres-protocol
ecosystem: rust
affected:
  - 'postgres-protocol >= 0.3.0, < 0.6.12'
patched:
  - postgres-protocol 0.6.12
published: '2026-08-24'
updated: '2026-08-24'
source: GHSA
sourceUrl: 'https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-5x78-73v4-xg6w'
references:
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/rust-postgres/rust-postgres/commit/d40097a36a85068ea50a3afbf0ce154ba439e7f0
  - url: >-
      https://github.com/rust-postgres/rust-postgres/releases/tag/postgres-protocol-v0.6.12
  - url: 'https://rustsec.org/advisories/RUSTSEC-2026-0179.html'
  - url: 'https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-5x78-73v4-xg6w'
tags:
  - ghsa
  - rust
ingestedAt: '2026-08-24T20:10:47.235Z'
---

## Overview

A malicious, compromised, or man-in-the-middle server can supply an arbitrarily
large SCRAM-SHA-256 PBKDF2 iteration count during authentication. The client
runs it inline with no upper bound, pinning a `tokio` worker thread for minutes
per connection, possibly stalling the whole async runtime.

Applications that connect only to a trusted database are not exposed; the risk
applies to clients that may connect to untrusted or user-supplied servers, or
whose connection can be intercepted by a man-in-the-middle.

## Affected packages

- `postgres-protocol >= 0.3.0, < 0.6.12`

## Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release:

- `postgres-protocol 0.6.12`