CVE-2024-58339

Deeper analysis

CVE-2024-58339 is an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability (CWE-770) affecting LlamaIndex (run-llama/llama_index) versions up to and including 0.12.2. The issue resides in the VannaPack VannaQueryEngine implementation, specifically within the custom_query() function in llama_index/packs/vanna/base.py. This logic generates SQL statements from user-supplied prompts and executes them via vn.run_sql() without enforcing query execution limits, enabling resource exhaustion.

The vulnerability carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), indicating high severity due to its potential for denial-of-service. Remote attackers require no privileges or user interaction and can exploit it over the network with low complexity. In downstream deployments where untrusted users provide prompts to the VannaQueryEngine, an attacker can supply crafted prompts that generate expensive or unbounded SQL operations, exhausting CPU or memory resources and causing a denial-of-service condition.

Advisories from sources including VulnCheck, Huntr, and the LlamaIndex GitHub repository detail the vulnerability and its exploitation path. Security practitioners should consult these references—such as https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/llamaindex-vannaqueryengine-sql-execution-allows-resource-exhaustion and https://huntr.com/bounties/a1d6c30d-fce0-412a-bd22-14e0d4c1fa1f—for guidance on identifying affected deployments and implementing mitigations like input validation or query limits.

This issue is particularly relevant to AI/ML workflows, as LlamaIndex is a framework for building LLM-powered applications, potentially exposing data querying interfaces in production RAG systems to resource exhaustion attacks. No real-world exploitation has been reported in the provided details.