EasyJSON Security Concerns and the Open Source Supply Chain

Why EasyJSON Is Making Headlines Now

EasyJSON is a staple in cloud-native Go applications, from military systems to financial APIs. But what if that code was quietly maintained by engineers under a sanctioned Russian tech giant?

EasyJSON, a fast JSON serialization library for Go, has recently drawn intense scrutiny due to its ties to Russia’s tech giant VK and emerging national security worries. A new report by Hunted Labs warns that EasyJSON – despite being open source – may pose a “persistent” risk to the US because it’s maintained by developers linked to VK (VKontakte). VK’s CEO, Vladimir Kiriyenko (son of a top Putin aide), has been under sanctions since 2022, raising red flags about foreign influence over a widely-used codebase. In other words, EasyJSON is making headlines now because security researchers have spotlighted it as a potential supply-chain weak point: an ostensibly benign library deeply embedded in many systems, but controlled by a company in a sanctioned adversary nation.

This alarm comes amid heightened geopolitical tensions (Russia’s war in Ukraine) and increased scrutiny of open-source software origins. EasyJSON’s case encapsulates these concerns, which is why multiple tech media outlets and forums are abuzz about it. Notably, EasyJSON has been widely used by the US Department of Defense and across finance, tech, and healthcare sectors, making any security risk a matter of national importance. The timing of these headlines is driven by the Hunted Labs findings and public warnings: while no breach has occurred, experts fear EasyJSON could be weaponized in future updates if left unchecked. In summary, EasyJSON is front-page news right now due to who controls it (VK Russia), who’s using it (from DOD to Fortune 500 companies), and what could happen if that trust is abused.

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Mitigating Circumstances

• Recent Maintenance: EasyJSON is not completely unmaintained; there were commits in December 2024, but the pace and depth of maintenance remain limited compared to active projects.
• VK Sanctions Status: VK Group itself is not currently on the US SDN (sanctions) list, though its CEO and some stakeholders are. This distinction is important for compliance discussions.
• No Current Vulnerabilities: Both Hunted Labs and Wired confirm there are no known vulnerabilities in EasyJSON at this time.
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Key Security Concerns Raised by Tech and Security Communities

The EasyJSON controversy has brought several interrelated security concerns to the forefront:

• Trusted Code, Questionable Origins: The library was developed under Mail.ru (now part of VK Group) and maintained by a team in Moscow. This direct link to a Russian state-influenced company has raised fears of a “sleeper cell” scenario – i.e. that hostile actors could subtly alter the code to exfiltrate data or sabotage systems. While no known vulnerabilities or backdoors currently exist in EasyJSON, the concern is future malicious updates. Given Russia’s track record in state-backed cyberattacks, having a critical library under Russian control is seen as a strategic risk (even if the code is clean today).
• A Sanctions Grey Zone: VK’s leadership is sanctioned and Mail.ru/VK is partly owned by sanctioned entities (e.g. Gazprom Media). Organizations with strict compliance rules are alarmed that EasyJSON’s provenance could violate internal policies. The fact that VK itself isn’t directly sanctioned yet (only its executives) complicates matters, but many are erring on the side of caution.
• The Next XZ-Style Backdoor?: The EasyJSON saga underscores the broader software supply chain threat. Even a well-functioning OSS library can be a ticking time bomb if adversaries control it. A cited example is the XZ Utils backdoor incident, where a contributor spent two years gaining trust in an open-source project and then slipped in a backdoor – only discovered by chance. EasyJSON could similarly be perfectly fine today yet become compromised tomorrow if maintainers are coerced or accounts hijacked. This potential for a stealthy, delayed attack has been a key talking point.
• A Linchpin Library With a Fragile Foundation: EasyJSON has been described as “a really critical package... a linchpin for the cloud native ecosystem.” Because it’s used in foundational libraries, an exploit in EasyJSON could cascade widely. Researchers fear a worst-case where a malicious EasyJSON update pushes a zero-day into countless applications that automatically pull it in. The concern isn’t just theft of data; it could be espionage or sabotage of critical infrastructure via this dependency.
• Unsafe by Design?: Although recent commits exist, the project’s pace suggests a lack of deep, ongoing review. EasyJSON also relies on performance tricks that use Go’s unsafe package for direct memory access. While this yields speed, it can also introduce memory safety issues if not handled carefully. The combination of limited recent maintenance and low-level memory operations is viewed as a recipe for potential security bugs. Even if no one deliberately sabotages it, latent vulnerabilities could go unfixed without active maintainers.
• Trust Models Are Changing: The EasyJSON debate is happening in the context of a broader industry shift in trust models. For example, in 2022 a Linux kernel maintainer removed 11 Russian developers from the project, citing sanctions and geopolitical risk. And in early 2025, the Linux Foundation issued guidance to be mindful of international sanctions in open source projects. These moves show that the tech community is increasingly weighing who writes the code, not just the code quality. EasyJSON’s Russian origin makes it a case study in these “trust but verify” discussions. In short, EasyJSON has become a flashpoint in the larger conversation about open source trust and national security.
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Why HeroDevs Is Built for Moments Like This

The EasyJSON story isn’t just about geopolitics—it’s a clear sign that the way we manage dependencies is broken. It exposes a hard truth about open source: when widely used libraries are maintained by individuals or entities outside trusted governance, and no one is watching closely, the risk isn’t theoretical—it’s operational.

EasyJSON is a double threat. On one hand, it's governed by a team with known ties to a sanctioned foreign power. On the other, it hasn't received meaningful updates in years. That’s not rare. It's normal. And that’s the problem.

At HeroDevs, this is the gap we fill. We exist because teams everywhere are shipping software that relies on unmaintained packages—code that still works, but isn't safe. We provide supported, secured forks of open-source projects that are otherwise in limbo. Not forks for fun—forks for survival. With security patches, compliance baked in, and long-term maintainability.

This isn’t about panic—it’s about preparedness. If EasyJSON were to be deprecated overnight or compromised in an update, most teams wouldn’t even know it was in their stack. We help teams identify those buried risks and give them a plan: either replace the dependency or let us support it with eyes wide open.

In moments like this, when a package like EasyJSON turns from invisible to infamous, HeroDevs offers what OSS too often lacks—continuity, transparency, and accountability.

This isn’t just about EasyJSON. It’s about how fragile and invisible the open-source supply chain can be.

Dependencies don’t need to be malicious to be dangerous. They just need to be abandoned. And when critical code is maintained by sanctioned entities or quietly forgotten, it’s time to act.

If you’re concerned about EasyJSON, or if your software relies on aging libraries without a safety net—talk to us. End-of-life doesn’t have to mean end-of-support. But ignoring the risks? That’s how real systems break.



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References

• Burgess, M. (2025, May 5). Security researchers warn a widely used open source tool poses a ‘persistent’ risk to the US. WIRED. https://www.wired.com
• Checkmarx. (2024, April). Usage of mailru/easyjson in parser.go [Discussion post]. GitHub. https://github.com
• Kubernetes. (2023, April). Use of a third-party library maintained by a sanctioned entity [Issue #117553]. GitHub. https://github.com
• swaggo. (2024, July). Mail.Ru easyjson library security concerns [Issue #1857]. GitHub. https://github.com
• WIRED. (2024, April 3). The mystery of ‘Jia Tan,’ the XZ backdoor mastermind. https://www.wired.com

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