fix(deps): update dependency qs to v6.14.1 [security]

[renovate]

This PR contains the following updates:

Package	Change	Age	Confidence
qs	6.11.2 → 6.14.1

GitHub Vulnerability Alerts

CVE-2025-15284

Summary

The arrayLimit option in qs did not enforce limits for bracket notation (a[]=1&a[]=2), only for indexed notation (a[0]=1). This is a consistency bug; arrayLimit should apply uniformly across all array notations.

Note: The default parameterLimit of 1000 effectively mitigates the DoS scenario originally described. With default options, bracket notation cannot produce arrays larger than parameterLimit regardless of arrayLimit, because each a[]=value consumes one parameter slot. The severity has been reduced accordingly.

Details

The arrayLimit option only checked limits for indexed notation (a[0]=1&a[1]=2) but did not enforce it for bracket notation (a[]=1&a[]=2).

Vulnerable code (lib/parse.js:159-162):

if (root === '[]' && options.parseArrays) {
    obj = utils.combine([], leaf);  // No arrayLimit check
}

Working code (lib/parse.js:175):

else if (index <= options.arrayLimit) {  // Limit checked here
    obj = [];
    obj[index] = leaf;
}

The bracket notation handler at line 159 uses utils.combine([], leaf) without validating against options.arrayLimit, while indexed notation at line 175 checks index <= options.arrayLimit before creating arrays.

PoC

const qs = require('qs');
const result = qs.parse('a[]=1&a[]=2&a[]=3&a[]=4&a[]=5&a[]=6', { arrayLimit: 5 });
console.log(result.a.length);  // Output: 6 (should be max 5)

Note on parameterLimit interaction: The original advisory's "DoS demonstration" claimed a length of 10,000, but parameterLimit (default: 1000) caps parsing to 1,000 parameters. With default options, the actual output is 1,000, not 10,000.

Impact

Consistency bug in arrayLimit enforcement. With default parameterLimit, the practical DoS risk is negligible since parameterLimit already caps the total number of parsed parameters (and thus array elements from bracket notation). The risk increases only when parameterLimit is explicitly set to a very high value.

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Release Notes

ljharb/qs (qs)

v6.14.1

Compare Source

• [Fix] ensure arrayLength applies to [] notation as well
• [Fix] parse: when a custom decoder returns null for a key, ignore that key
• [Refactor] parse: extract key segment splitting helper
• [meta] add threat model
• [actions] add workflow permissions
• [Tests] stringify: increase coverage
• [Dev Deps] update eslint, @ljharb/eslint-config, npmignore, es-value-fixtures, for-each, object-inspect

v6.14.0

Compare Source

• [New] parse: add throwOnParameterLimitExceeded option (#​517)
• [Refactor] parse: use utils.combine more
• [patch] parse: add explicit throwOnLimitExceeded default
• [actions] use shared action; re-add finishers
• [meta] Fix changelog formatting bug
• [Deps] update side-channel
• [Dev Deps] update es-value-fixtures, has-bigints, has-proto, has-symbols
• [Tests] increase coverage

v6.13.1

Compare Source

• [Fix] stringify: avoid a crash when a filter key is null
• [Fix] utils.merge: functions should not be stringified into keys
• [Fix] parse: avoid a crash with interpretNumericEntities: true, comma: true, and iso charset
• [Fix] stringify: ensure a non-string filter does not crash
• [Refactor] use __proto__ syntax instead of Object.create for null objects
• [Refactor] misc cleanup
• [Tests] utils.merge: add some coverage
• [Tests] fix a test case
• [actions] split out node 10-20, and 20+
• [Dev Deps] update es-value-fixtures, mock-property, object-inspect, tape

v6.13.0

Compare Source

• [New] parse: add strictDepth option (#​511)
• [Tests] use npm audit instead of aud

v6.12.3

Compare Source

• [Fix] parse: properly account for strictNullHandling when allowEmptyArrays
• [meta] fix changelog indentation

v6.12.2

Compare Source

• [Fix] parse: parse encoded square brackets (#​506)
• [readme] add CII best practices badge

v6.12.1

Compare Source

• [Fix] parse: Disable decodeDotInKeys by default to restore previous behavior (#​501)
• [Performance] utils: Optimize performance under large data volumes, reduce memory usage, and speed up processing (#​502)
• [Refactor] utils: use +=
• [Tests] increase coverage

v6.12.0

Compare Source

• [New] parse/stringify: add decodeDotInKeys/encodeDotKeys options (#​488)
• [New] parse: add duplicates option
• [New] parse/stringify: add allowEmptyArrays option to allow [] in object values (#​487)
• [Refactor] parse/stringify: move allowDots config logic to its own variable
• [Refactor] stringify: move option-handling code into normalizeStringifyOptions
• [readme] update readme, add logos (#​484)
• [readme] stringify: clarify default arrayFormat behavior
• [readme] fix line wrapping
• [readme] remove dead badges
• [Deps] update side-channel
• [meta] make the dist build 50% smaller
• [meta] add sideEffects flag
• [meta] run build in prepack, not prepublish
• [Tests] parse: remove useless tests; add coverage
• [Tests] stringify: increase coverage
• [Tests] use mock-property
• [Tests] stringify: improve coverage
• [Dev Deps] update @ljharb/eslint-config , aud, has-override-mistake, has-property-descriptors, mock-property, npmignore, object-inspect, tape
• [Dev Deps] pin glob, since v10.3.8+ requires a broken jackspeak
• [Dev Deps] pin jackspeak since 2.1.2+ depends on npm aliases, which kill the install process in npm < 6

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