GHSA-3669-72x9-r9p3

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GHSA-3669-72x9-r9p3

Summary: Potential memory exhaustion attack due to sparse slice deserialization

Details: ### Details Running `schema.Decoder.Decode()` on a struct that has a field of type `[]struct{...}` opens it up to malicious attacks regarding memory allocations, taking advantage of the sparse slice functionality. For instance, in the Proof of Concept written below, someone can specify to set a field of the billionth element and it will allocate all other elements before it in the slice. In the local environment environment for my project, I was able to call an endpoint like `/innocent_endpoint?arr.10000000.X=1` and freeze my system from the memory allocation while parsing `r.Form`. I think [this line](https://github.com/gorilla/schema/blob/main/decoder.go#L223) is responsible for allocating the slice, although I haven't tested to make sure, so it's just an educated guess. ### Proof of Concept The following proof of concept works on both v1.2.0 and v1.2.1. I have not tested earlier versions. ```go package main import ( "fmt" "github.com/gorilla/schema" ) func main() { dec := schema.NewDecoder() var result struct { Arr []struct{ Val int } } if err := dec.Decode(&result, map[string][]string{"arr.1000000000.Val": {"1"}}); err != nil { panic(err) } fmt.Printf("%#+v\n", result) } ``` ### Impact Any use of `schema.Decoder.Decode()` on a struct with arrays of other structs could be vulnerable to this memory exhaustion vulnerability. There seems to be no possible solution that a developer using this library can do to disable this behaviour without fixing it in this project, so all uses of Decode that fall under this umbrella are affected. A fix that doesn't require a major change may also be harder to find, since it could break compatibility with some other intended use-cases.

References: https://github.com/gorilla/schema/security/advisories/GHSA-3669-72x9-r9p3, https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-37298, https://github.com/gorilla/schema/commit/cd59f2f12cbdfa9c06aa63e425d1fe4a806967ff, https://github.com/gorilla/schema, https://github.com/gorilla/schema/blob/main/decoder.go#L223