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Microsoft.OpenAPI: Circular schema references may terminate OpenAPI parsing

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published May 26, 2026 in microsoft/OpenAPI.NET • Updated Jul 6, 2026

Package

nuget Microsoft.OpenAPI (NuGet)

Affected versions

>= 3.0.0, <= 3.5.3

Patched versions

3.5.4
nuget Microsoft.OpenApi (NuGet)
>= 2.0.0-preview.11, <= 2.7.4
2.7.5

Description

Impact

A small OpenAPI document containing a circular schema reference can cause process termination through stack overflow in Microsoft.OpenApi. The issue affects OpenAPI document parsing through public OpenAPI.NET reader APIs and has been confirmed across both JSON and YAML reader paths.

Affected versions

  • >= 2.0.0-preview.11, <= 2.7.4
  • >= 3.0.0, <= 3.5.3

Patches

  • For the 2.X major version, versions 2.7.5 and above are patched.
  • For the 3.X major version, versions 3.5.4 and above are patched.
  • For the 1.X major version, the issue does not apply since that version of the library could not resolve references that pointed to another reference.

Impact

Applications, CLIs, developer tools, or services that parse untrusted OpenAPI documents in-process may be terminated by a crafted OpenAPI document containing circular schema references.

The impact is availability/process termination only. This report does not claim remote code execution, authentication bypass, credential exposure, privilege escalation, data exposure, or Microsoft hosted service impact.

Details

A standalone isolated-process harness confirmed repeatable process termination through public OpenAPI.NET reader APIs. The issue reproduces in the affected released NuGet packages and affects both JSON and YAML reader paths.

A separate Microsoft-owned local consumer, microsoft/kiota, also reproduces the termination through the kiota show --openapi <file> workflow. That workflow parses OpenAPI files in-process using Microsoft.OpenApi and Microsoft.OpenApi.YamlReader.

Example payload

{
    "openapi": "3.0.0",
    "info": {
        "title": "Test",
        "version": "0.0.1"
    },
    "paths": {},
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "A": {
                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/B"
            },
            "B": {
                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/A"
            }
        }
    }
}

Remediation

Users should upgrade to Microsoft.OpenApi 2.7.5 or 3.5.4, depending on the major version line they consume.

Applications that parse OpenAPI documents from untrusted sources should avoid parsing those documents in the primary application process when possible. Running parsing in an isolated process can reduce the blast radius of parser failures.

References

@baywet baywet published to microsoft/OpenAPI.NET May 26, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 30, 2026
Reviewed Jun 30, 2026
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jun 30, 2026
Last updated Jul 6, 2026

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(49th percentile)

Weaknesses

Uncontrolled Recursion

The product does not properly control the amount of recursion that takes place, consuming excessive resources, such as allocated memory or the program stack. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-49451

GHSA ID

GHSA-v5pm-xwqc-g5wc

Source code

Credits

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