hardhat init has 4 high severity vulnerabilities

Question

I initialized a hard project with....

npm hardhat init

the project folders and files are created but there a '4 high severity vulnerabilities' reported.

npm audit produces....

# npm audit report

ws  7.0.0 - 7.5.9
Severity: high
ws affected by a DoS when handling a request with many HTTP headers - https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-3h5v-q93c-6h6q
fix available via `npm audit fix`
node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/node_modules/ws
  @ethersproject/providers  <=5.7.2
  Depends on vulnerable versions of ws
  node_modules/@ethersproject/providers
    ethers  5.0.0-beta.119 - 5.7.2
    Depends on vulnerable versions of @ethersproject/providers
    node_modules/eth-gas-reporter/node_modules/ethers
      eth-gas-reporter  >=0.2.26
      Depends on vulnerable versions of ethers
      node_modules/eth-gas-reporter

4 high severity vulnerabilities

To address all issues, run:
  npm audit fix

====================================================

However 'npm audit fix' does not solve the problem.

How do I resolve this?

Answer 1

Okay so, there is NO problem from hardhat or hardhat-tools or their versions.

The best answer to this is,

Npm audit is broken.

Yeah.

So i did a bit of digging and found this answer on StackOverflow.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75492882/no-fix-available-error-when-installing-hardhat-toolbox

Also found this from the hardhat's GitHub

https://github.com/NomicFoundation/hardhat/issues/4084