GHSA-w7fw-mjwx-w883 — qs's arrayLimit bypass in comma parsing allows denial of service

Affected: npm: qs

### Summary The `arrayLimit` option in qs does not enforce limits for comma-separated values when `comma: true` is enabled, allowing attackers to cause denial-of-service via memory exhaustion. This is a bypass of the array limit enforcement, similar to the bracket notation bypass addressed in GHSA-6rw7-vpxm-498p (CVE-2025-15284).

### Details When the `comma` option is set to `true` (not the default, but configurable in applications), qs allows parsing comma-separated strings as arrays (e.g., `?param=a,b,c` becomes `['a', 'b', 'c']`). However, the limit check for `arrayLimit` (default: 20) and the optional throwOnLimitExceeded occur after the comma-handling logic in `parseArrayValue`, enabling a bypass. This permits creation of arbitrarily large arrays from a single parameter, leading to excessive memory allocation.

**Vulnerable code** (lib/parse.js: lines ~40-50): ```js if (val && typeof val === 'string' && options.comma && val.indexOf(',') > -1) { return val.split(','); }

if (options.throwOnLimitExceeded && currentArrayLength >= options.arrayLimit) { throw new RangeError('Array limit exceeded. Only ' + options.arrayLimit + ' element' + (options.arrayLimit === 1 ? '' : 's') + ' allowed in an array.'); }

return val; ``` The `split(',')` returns the array immediately, skipping the subsequent limit check. Downstream merging via `utils.combine` does not prevent allocation, even if it marks overflows for sparse arrays.This discrepancy allows attackers to send a single…

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GHSA-w7fw-mjwx-w883 — qs's arrayLimit bypass in comma parsing allows denial of service