Hot Chocolate is an open-source GraphQL server. Prior to versions 12.22.7, 13.9.16, 14.3.1, and 15.1.14, Hot Chocolate's recursive descent parser `Utf8GraphQLParser` has no recursion depth limit. A crafted GraphQL document with deeply nested selection sets, object values, list values, or list types can trigger a `StackOverflowException` on payloads as small as 40 KB. Because `StackOverflowException` is uncatchable in .NET (since .NET 2.0), the entire worker process is terminated immediately. All in-flight HTTP requests, background `IHostedService` tasks, and open WebSocket subscriptions on that worker are dropped. The orchestrator (Kubernetes, IIS, etc.) must restart the process. This occurs before any validation rules run — `MaxExecutionDepth`, complexity analyzers, persisted query allow-lists, and custom `IDocumentValidatorRule` implementations cannot intercept the crash because `Utf8GraphQLParser.Parse` is invoked before validation. The `MaxAllowedFields=2048` limit does not help because the crashing payloads contain very few fields. The fix in versions 12.22.7, 13.9.16, 14.3.1, and 15.1.14 adds a `MaxAllowedRecursionDepth` option to `ParserOptions` with a safe default, and enforces it across all recursive parser methods (`ParseSelectionSet`, `ParseValueLiteral`, `ParseObject`, `ParseList`, `ParseTypeReference`, etc.). When the limit is exceeded, a catchable `SyntaxException` is thrown instead of overflowing the stack. There is no application-level workaround. `StackOverflowException` cannot be caught in .NET. The only mitigation is to upgrade to a patched version. Operators can reduce (but not eliminate) risk by limiting HTTP request body size at the reverse proxy or load balancer layer, though the smallest crashing payload (40 KB) is well below most default body size limits and is highly compressible (~few hundred bytes via gzip).

There are packages installed that are affected by a vulnerability referenced in the following CVE:

  - Hot Chocolate is an open-source GraphQL server. Prior to versions 12.22.7, 13.9.16, 14.3.1, and 15.1.14,
    Hot Chocolate's recursive descent parser `Utf8GraphQLParser` has no recursion depth limit. A crafted
    GraphQL document with deeply nested selection sets, object values, list values, or list types can trigger
    a `StackOverflowException` on payloads as small as 40 KB. Because `StackOverflowException` is uncatchable
    in .NET (since .NET 2.0), the entire worker process is terminated immediately. All in-flight HTTP
    requests, background `IHostedService` tasks, and open WebSocket subscriptions on that worker are dropped.
    The orchestrator (Kubernetes, IIS, etc.) must restart the process. This occurs before any validation rules
    run — `MaxExecutionDepth`, complexity analyzers, persisted query allow-lists, and custom
    `IDocumentValidatorRule` implementations cannot intercept the crash because `Utf8GraphQLParser.Parse` is
    invoked before validation. The `MaxAllowedFields=2048` limit does not help because the crashing payloads
    contain very few fields. The fix in versions 12.22.7, 13.9.16, 14.3.1, and 15.1.14 adds a
    `MaxAllowedRecursionDepth` option to `ParserOptions` with a safe default, and enforces it across all
    recursive parser methods (`ParseSelectionSet`, `ParseValueLiteral`, `ParseObject`, `ParseList`,
    `ParseTypeReference`, etc.). When the limit is exceeded, a catchable `SyntaxException` is thrown instead
    of overflowing the stack. There is no application-level workaround. `StackOverflowException` cannot be
    caught in .NET. The only mitigation is to upgrade to a patched version. Operators can reduce (but not
    eliminate) risk by limiting HTTP request body size at the reverse proxy or load balancer layer, though the
    smallest crashing payload (40 KB) is well below most default body size limits and is highly compressible
    (~few hundred bytes via gzip). (CVE-2026-40324)

ID	Name	Product	Family	Severity
440593	SCA: security update for HotChocolate.Language (GHSA-qr3m-xw4c-jqw3)	Tenable Cloud Security	SCA Checks	critical
440593	SCA: security update for HotChocolate.Language (GHSA-qr3m-xw4c-jqw3)	Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security	SCA Checks	critical

Detections

Analytics

CVE-2026-40324

critical

Tenable Plugins

critical

critical