mercure has Topic Selector Cache Key Collision

### Impact A cache key collision vulnerability in `TopicSelectorStore` allows an attacker to poison the match result cache, potentially causing private updates to be delivered to unauthorized subscribers or blocking delivery to authorized ones. The cache key was constructed by concatenating the topic selector and topic with an underscore separator: ```go k = "m_" + topicSelector + "_" + topic ``` Because both topic selectors and topics can contain underscores, two distinct pairs can produce the same key: ``` selector="foo_bar" topic="baz" → key: "m_foo_bar_baz" selector="foo" topic="bar_baz" → key: "m_foo_bar_baz" ``` An attacker who can subscribe to the hub or publish updates with crafted topic names can exploit this to bypass authorization checks on private updates. ### Patches The vulnerability is fixed by replacing string-encoded cache keys with typed Go struct keys that are inherently collision-free: ```go type matchCacheKey struct { topicSelector string topic string } ``` The internal `TopicSelectorStoreCache` interface and sharded cache abstraction have also been removed in favor of a single typed otter cache. Users should upgrade to version **0.22.0** or later. ### Workarounds Disable the topic selector cache by setting `topic_selector_cache` to `-1` in the Caddyfile, or by passing a cache size of `0` when using the library directly. This eliminates the vulnerability at the cost of reduced performance.

Source published

8 Apr 2026 19:53:20 UTC

Source modified

10 Sep 2026 03:51:02 UTC

Observed here

24 Oct 2026 13:19:41 UTC

Source terms

GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0

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This view projects the publisher's source fields for reading; the original JSON retains additional fields and CVE enrichment containers. Attribution: osv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC-BY-4.0. Source text is retained; field grouping and change labels are provided by ChangeIntel.

CVSS_V4 · CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Publisher rating · HIGH