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Medium

Array literal misordering in github.com/open-policy-agent/opa

Type: advisorySources: OSV

OPA is an open source, general-purpose policy engine. Under certain conditions, pretty-printing an abstract syntax tree (AST) that contains synthetic nodes could change the logic of some statements by reordering array literals. Example of policies impacted are those that parse and compare web paths. **All of these** three conditions have to be met to create an adverse effect: 1. An AST of Rego had to be **created programmatically** such that it ends up containing terms without a location (such as wildcard variables). 2. The AST had to be **pretty-printed** using the `github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/format` package. 3. The result of the pretty-printing had to be **parsed and evaluated again** via an OPA instance using the bundles, or the Golang packages. If any of these three conditions are not met, you are not affected. Notably, all three would be true if using **optimized bundles**, i.e. bundles created with `opa build -O=1` or higher. In that case, the optimizer would fulfil condition (1.), the result of that would be pretty-printed when writing the bundle to disk, fulfilling (2.). When the bundle was then used, we'd satisfy (3.). As a workaround users may disable optimization when creating bundles.

Products
Not specified
Affected versions
Not specified
Fixed versions
Not specified
CVEs
CVE-2022-23628
Confirmed fixed CVEs
Not specified
Updated in this feed
4 Nov 2026, 09:08 UTC · Revision 1

Source evidence

Array literal misordering in github.com/open-policy-agent/opa

core-osv · Original source

Published 9 Feb 2022, 21:50 UTC

OPA is an open source, general-purpose policy engine. Under certain conditions, pretty-printing an abstract syntax tree (AST) that contains synthetic nodes could change the logic of some statements by reordering array literals. Example of policies impacted are those that parse and compare web paths. **All of these** three conditions have to be met to create an adverse effect: 1. An AST of Rego had to be **created programmatically** such that it ends up containing terms without a location (such as wildcard variables). 2. The AST had to be **pretty-printed** using the `github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/format` package. 3. The result of the pretty-printing had to be **parsed and evaluated again** via an OPA instance using the bundles, or the Golang packages. If any of these three conditions are not met, you are not affected. Notably, all three would be true if using **optimized bundles**, i.e. bundles created with `opa build -O=1` or higher. In that case, the optimizer would fulfil condition (1.), the result of that would be pretty-printed when writing the bundle to disk, fulfilling (2.). When the bundle was then used, we'd satisfy (3.). As a workaround users may disable optimization when creating bundles.

osv:CVE-2022-23628
Complete source record
{
  "id": "089360e0387373615862846f5d259ac359d787fea90e1b86c8d902aaaa9b92db",
  "url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2022-23628",
  "method": "structured",
  "payload": {
    "kind": "advisory",
    "title": "Array literal misordering in github.com/open-policy-agent/opa",
    "summary": "OPA is an open source, general-purpose policy engine. Under certain conditions, pretty-printing an abstract syntax tree (AST) that contains synthetic nodes could change the logic of some statements by reordering array literals. Example of policies impacted are those that parse and compare web paths. **All of these** three conditions have to be met to create an adverse effect: 1. An AST of Rego had to be **created programmatically** such that it ends up containing terms without a location (such as wildcard variables). 2. The AST had to be **pretty-printed** using the `github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/format` package. 3. The result of the pretty-printing had to be **parsed and evaluated again** via an OPA instance using the bundles, or the Golang packages. If any of these three conditions are not met, you are not affected. Notably, all three would be true if using **optimized bundles**, i.e. bundles created with `opa build -O=1` or higher. In that case, the optimizer would fulfil condition (1.), the result of that would be pretty-printed when writing the bundle to disk, fulfilling (2.). When the bundle was then used, we'd satisfy (3.). As a workaround users may disable optimization when creating bundles.",
    "evidence": "osv:CVE-2022-23628",
    "products": [],
    "severity": "medium",
    "structured": {
      "id": "CVE-2022-23628",
      "aliases": [
        "CVE-2022-23628",
        "GHSA-hcw3-j74m-qc58",
        "GO-2022-0316"
      ],
      "metrics": [
        {
          "type": "CVSS_V3",
          "score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:L"
        }
      ],
      "affected": [
        {
          "ranges": [
            {
              "repo": "https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa",
              "type": "GIT",
              "events": [
                {
                  "introduced": "64359aebdea5bfc4c6644e0e760a8d13aaa3ebba"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "ad4f4f130025f8fd57978b94bee03ae247e76102"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "932e4ffc37a590ace79e9b75ca4340288c220239"
                },
                {
                  "fixed": "bfd984ddf93ef2c4963a08d4fdadae0bcf1a3717"
                }
              ],
              "database_specific": {
                "extracted_events": [
                  {
                    "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:openpolicyagent:open_policy_agent:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "introduced": "0.33.1"
                      },
                      {
                        "fixed": "0.37.0"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "CPE_RANGE"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "932e4ffc37a590ace79e9b75ca4340288c220239"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
                  },
                  {
                    "range": [
                      {
                        "fixed": "bfd984ddf93ef2c4963a08d4fdadae0bcf1a3717"
                      }
                    ],
                    "source": "REFERENCES_COMMIT"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          ],
          "database_specific": {
            "source": "https://storage.googleapis.com/cve-osv-conversion/osv-output/CVE-2022-23628.json"
          }
        }
      ],
      "modified": "2026-10-28T02:30:34.305802267Z",
      "provider": "osv",
      "references": [
        "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2022/23xxx/CVE-2022-23628.json",
        "https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/security/advisories/GHSA-hcw3-j74m-qc58",
        "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-23628",
        "https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/commit/932e4ffc37a590ace79e9b75ca4340288c220239",
        "https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/commit/bfd984ddf93ef2c4963a08d4fdadae0bcf1a3717",
        "https://github.com/open-policy-agent/opa/pull/3851"
      ],
      "provider_metadata": {
        "cwe_ids": [
          "CWE-682"
        ],
        "cna_assigner": "GitHub_M",
        "osv_generated_from": "https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/tree/main/cves/2022/23xxx/CVE-2022-23628.json"
      }
    },
    "related_cves": [
      {
        "value": "CVE-2022-23628",
        "evidence": "/id"
      }
    ],
    "security_relevant": true,
    "severity_evidence": "/severity/0/score"
  },
  "source_id": "core-osv",
  "document_id": 501334,
  "published_at": "2022-02-09T21:50:11+00:00"
}