Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to version 4.2.15.Final, the default configuration of the `Http3ConnectionHandler` in the Netty HTTP/3 codec lacks an enforced maximum header size limit. When a peer does not explicitly specify `HTTP3_SETTINGS_MAX_FIELD_SECTION_SIZE`, the implementation defaults to an unbounded limit. This insecure default configuration allows a malicious client or server to send an enormous number of headers, leading to a memory exhaustion Denial of Service via an `OutOfMemoryError`. Version 4.2.15.Final contains a patch.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, SslClientHelloHandler.decode() reads the 24-bit TLS handshake length and, when the ClientHello does not fit in the first record, eagerly allocates `ctx.alloc().buffer(handshakeLength)` (line 161). The guard at line 140 is `handshakeLength > maxClientHelloLength && maxClientHelloLength != 0`, and the commonly-used SniHandler/AbstractSniHandler constructors (SniHandler(Mapping), SniHandler(AsyncMapping), AbstractSniHandler()) pass maxClientHelloLength=0 and handshakeTimeoutMillis=0, so the length guard is disabled and no timeout is scheduled. A 16 MiB request exceeds the default pooled chunk size and becomes a huge/unpooled allocation performed immediately. The buffer is retained in the handler until the channel closes. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to version 4.2.15.Final, a memory exhaustion vulnerability in the Netty HTTP/3 codec allows the creation of an infinite number of blocked streams, which can cause OOM error. Version 4.2.15.Final patches the issue.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, Netty HTTP/2 max header size handling produces an attack similar to HTTP/2 Rapid Reset. There is a setting in the http2 specification called `SETTINGS_MAX_HEADER_LIST_SIZE`. When a client sends that setting to Netty, it appears that Netty will behave as follows: read the request; proxy the request to the origin; attempt to produce a response; and create an exception while writing the headers for the response. Functionally, this should be similar to the http2 reset attack, but with a different on-the-wire signature. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In versions of netty-transport-sctp prior to 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, for each non-complete SctpMessage fragment the handler does `fragments.put(streamId, Unpooled.wrappedBuffer(frag, byteBuf))`, wrapping the previous accumulator and the new slice into a *new* CompositeByteBuf every time. After N fragments the accumulator is an N-deep chain of composites, each holding references and component arrays; readableBytes()/getBytes() on the final buffer recurse N levels. There is no limit on N, on total bytes, or on the number of streamIdentifiers an attacker can open (each gets its own map entry). A peer that never sets the `complete` flag can grow this structure indefinitely from tiny 1-byte DATA chunks. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, RedisArrayAggregator pre-allocates ArrayList with initial capacity equal to the RESP array element count declared in an array header. That count is taken from the wire before the corresponding child messages exist. A small malicious header can claim a huge initial capacity. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In netty-codec-haproxy prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, when decoding a PP2_TYPE_SSL TLV, HAProxyMessage.readNextTLV() first calls `header.retainedSlice(header.readerIndex(), length)` and only then reads the 1-byte client field and 4-byte verify field. If the attacker sets the TLV length below 5, the subsequent readByte/readInt throws IndexOutOfBoundsException. HAProxyMessageDecoder only catches HAProxyProtocolException around this call, so the IOOBE propagates and the retained slice on the pooled cumulation buffer is never released. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to versions 4.1.124.Final and 4.2.4.Final, Netty is vulnerable to MadeYouReset DDoS. This is a logical vulnerability in the HTTP/2 protocol, that uses malformed HTTP/2 control frames in order to break the max concurrent streams limit - which results in resource exhaustion and distributed denial of service. This issue has been patched in versions 4.1.124.Final and 4.2.4.Final.

The ZlibDecoders in Netty 4.1.x before 4.1.46 allow for unbounded memory allocation while decoding a ZlibEncoded byte stream. An attacker could send a large ZlibEncoded byte stream to the Netty server, forcing the server to allocate all of its free memory to a single decoder.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In netty-codec-redis prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, an attacker can cause DoS by sending a crafted Redis payload with deeply nested arrays. This forces the server to allocate a massive number of state objects and collections, leading to memory exhaustion and an OutOfMemoryError. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In netty-codec-redis prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, an attacker can cause DoS by sending crafted Redis payloads across multiple connections without `\r\n`. This exhausts the server's direct memory pool (OutOfDirectMemoryError), preventing legitimate connections from being processed. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, the MQTT 5 header Properties section is parsed and buffered before any message size limit is applied. Specifically, in MqttDecoder, the decodeVariableHeader() method is called before the bytesRemainingBeforeVariableHeader > maxBytesInMessage check. The decodeVariableHeader() can call other methods which will call decodeProperties(). Effectively, Netty does not apply any limits to the size of the properties being decoded. Additionally, because MqttDecoder extends ReplayingDecoder, Netty will repeatedly re-parse the enormous Properties sections and buffer the bytes in memory, until the entire thing parses to completion. This can cause high resource usage in both CPU and memory. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, Lz4FrameDecoder allocates a ByteBuf of size decompressedLength (up to 32 MB per block) before LZ4 runs. A peer only needs a 21-byte header plus compressedLength payload bytes - 22 bytes if compressedLength == 1 - to force that allocation. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. From 4.2.0.Final to 4.2.13.Final , Netty's epoll transport fails to detect and close TCP connections that receive a RST after being half-closed, leading to stale channels that are never cleaned up and, in some code paths, a 100% CPU busy-loop in the event loop thread. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, HttpContentDecompressor accepts a maxAllocation parameter to limit decompression buffer size and prevent decompression bomb attacks. This limit is correctly enforced for gzip and deflate encodings via ZlibDecoder, but is silently ignored when the content encoding is br (Brotli), zstd, or snappy. An attacker can bypass the configured decompression limit by sending a compressed payload with Content-Encoding: br instead of Content-Encoding: gzip, causing unbounded memory allocation and out-of-memory denial of service. The same vulnerability exists in DelegatingDecompressorFrameListener for HTTP/2 connections. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. In versions prior to 4.1.132.Final and 4.2.10.Final, a remote user can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) against a Netty HTTP/2 server by sending a flood of `CONTINUATION` frames. The server's lack of a limit on the number of `CONTINUATION` frames, combined with a bypass of existing size-based mitigations using zero-byte frames, allows an user to cause excessive CPU consumption with minimal bandwidth, rendering the server unresponsive. Versions 4.1.132.Final and 4.2.10.Final fix the issue.

Netty, an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework, has a vulnerability starting in version 4.1.91.Final and prior to version 4.1.118.Final. When a special crafted packet is received via SslHandler it doesn't correctly handle validation of such a packet in all cases which can lead to a native crash. Version 4.1.118.Final contains a patch. As workaround its possible to either disable the usage of the native SSLEngine or change the code manually.

The HTTP/2 protocol allows a denial of service (server resource consumption) because request cancellation can reset many streams quickly, as exploited in the wild in August through October 2023.

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final, when decoding header blocks, the non-Huffman branch of io.netty.handler.codec.http3.QpackDecoder#decodeHuffmanEncodedLiteral may execute new byte[length] for a string literal before verifying that length bytes are actually present in the compressed field section. The wire encoding allows a very large length to be expressed in few bytes. There is no check that length <= in.readableBytes() before new byte[length]. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final.

Netty project is an event-driven asynchronous network application framework. In versions prior to 4.1.86.Final, a StackOverflowError can be raised when parsing a malformed crafted message due to an infinite recursion. This issue is patched in version 4.1.86.Final. There is no workaround, except using a custom HaProxyMessageDecoder.

handler/ssl/OpenSslEngine.java in Netty 4.0.x before 4.0.37.Final and 4.1.x before 4.1.1.Final allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop).

The Snappy frame decoder function doesn't restrict the chunk length which may lead to excessive memory usage. Beside this it also may buffer reserved skippable chunks until the whole chunk was received which may lead to excessive memory usage as well. This vulnerability can be triggered by supplying malicious input that decompresses to a very big size (via a network stream or a file) or by sending a huge skippable chunk.

The Bzip2 decompression decoder function doesn't allow setting size restrictions on the decompressed output data (which affects the allocation size used during decompression). All users of Bzip2Decoder are affected. The malicious input can trigger an OOME and so a DoS attack

urllib3 is an HTTP client library for Python. From 2.6.0 to before 2.7.0, urllib3 could decompress the whole response instead of the requested portion (1) during the second HTTPResponse.read(amt=N) call when the response was decompressed using the official Brotli library or (2) when HTTPResponse.drain_conn() was called after the response had been read and decompressed partially (compression algorithm did not matter here). These issues could cause urllib3 to fully decode a small amount of highly compressed data in a single operation. This could result in excessive resource consumption (high CPU usage and massive memory allocation for the decompressed data) on the client side. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.7.0.

Unfurl before 2026.04 contains an unbounded zlib decompression vulnerability in parse_compressed.py that allows remote attackers to cause denial of service. Attackers can submit highly compressed payloads via URL parameters to the /json/visjs endpoint that expand to gigabytes, exhausting server memory and crashing the service.

NATS-Server is a High-Performance server for NATS.io, a cloud and edge native messaging system. The WebSockets handling of NATS messages handles compressed messages via the WebSockets negotiated compression. Prior to versions 2.11.2 and 2.12.3, the implementation bound the memory size of a NATS message but did not independently bound the memory consumption of the memory stream when constructing a NATS message which might then fail validation for size reasons. An attacker can use a compression bomb to cause excessive memory consumption, often resulting in the operating system terminating the server process. The use of compression is negotiated before authentication, so this does not require valid NATS credentials to exploit. The fix, present in versions 2.11.2 and 2.12.3, was to bounds the decompression to fail once the message was too large, instead of continuing on. The vulnerability only affects deployments which use WebSockets and which expose the network port to untrusted end-points.

Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Compression Bomb) vulnerability in Erlang OTP ssh (ssh_transport modules) allows Denial of Service via Resource Depletion. The SSH transport layer advertises legacy zlib compression by default and inflates attacker-controlled payloads pre-authentication without any size limit, enabling reliable memory exhaustion DoS. Two compression algorithms are affected: * zlib: Activates immediately after key exchange, enabling unauthenticated attacks * zlib@openssh.com: Activates post-authentication, enabling authenticated attacks Each SSH packet can decompress ~255 MB from 256 KB of wire data (1029:1 amplification ratio). Multiple packets can rapidly exhaust available memory, causing OOM kills in memory-constrained environments. This vulnerability is associated with program files lib/ssh/src/ssh_transport.erl and program routines ssh_transport:decompress/2, ssh_transport:handle_packet_part/4. This issue affects OTP from OTP 17.0 until OTP 28.4.1, 27.3.4.9 and 26.2.5.18 corresponding to ssh from 3.0.1 until 5.5.1, 5.2.11.6 and 5.1.4.14.

GuardDog is a CLI tool to identify malicious PyPI packages. Prior to 2.7.1, GuardDog's safe_extract() function does not validate decompressed file sizes when extracting ZIP archives (wheels, eggs), allowing attackers to cause denial of service through zip bombs. A malicious package can consume gigabytes of disk space from a few megabytes of compressed data. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.7.1.

urllib3 is an HTTP client library for Python. urllib3's streaming API is designed for the efficient handling of large HTTP responses by reading the content in chunks, rather than loading the entire response body into memory at once. urllib3 can perform decoding or decompression based on the HTTP `Content-Encoding` header (e.g., `gzip`, `deflate`, `br`, or `zstd`). When using the streaming API, the library decompresses only the necessary bytes, enabling partial content consumption. Starting in version 1.22 and prior to version 2.6.3, for HTTP redirect responses, the library would read the entire response body to drain the connection and decompress the content unnecessarily. This decompression occurred even before any read methods were called, and configured read limits did not restrict the amount of decompressed data. As a result, there was no safeguard against decompression bombs. A malicious server could exploit this to trigger excessive resource consumption on the client. Applications and libraries are affected when they stream content from untrusted sources by setting `preload_content=False` when they do not disable redirects. Users should upgrade to at least urllib3 v2.6.3, in which the library does not decode content of redirect responses when `preload_content=False`. If upgrading is not immediately possible, disable redirects by setting `redirect=False` for requests to untrusted source.

The undici WebSocket client is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack via unbounded memory consumption during permessage-deflate decompression. When a WebSocket connection negotiates the permessage-deflate extension, the client decompresses incoming compressed frames without enforcing any limit on the decompressed data size. A malicious WebSocket server can send a small compressed frame (a "decompression bomb") that expands to an extremely large size in memory, causing the Node.js process to exhaust available memory and crash or become unresponsive. The vulnerability exists in the PerMessageDeflate.decompress() method, which accumulates all decompressed chunks in memory and concatenates them into a single Buffer without checking whether the total size exceeds a safe threshold.

AIOHTTP is an asynchronous HTTP client/server framework for asyncio and Python. Versions 3.13.2 and below allow a zip bomb to be used to execute a DoS against the AIOHTTP server. An attacker may be able to send a compressed request that when decompressed by AIOHTTP could exhaust the host's memory. This issue is fixed in version 3.13.3.

Turms AI-Serving module v0.10.0-SNAPSHOT and earlier contains an image decompression bomb denial of service vulnerability. The ExtendedOpenCVImage class in ai/djl/opencv/ExtendedOpenCVImage.java loads images using OpenCV's imread() function without validating dimensions or pixel count before decompression. An attacker can upload a specially crafted compressed image file (e.g., PNG) that is small when compressed but expands to gigabytes of memory when loaded. This causes immediate memory exhaustion, OutOfMemoryError, and service crash. No authentication is required if the OCR service is publicly accessible. Multiple requests can completely deny service availability.

pypdf is a free and open-source pure-python PDF library. Prior to version 6.1.3, an attacker who uses this vulnerability can craft a PDF which leads to large memory usage. This requires parsing the content stream of a page using the LZWDecode filter. This has been fixed in pypdf version 6.1.3.

cpp-httplib is a C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library. Prior to 0.35.0, cpp-httplib (httplib.h) does not enforce Server::set_payload_max_length() on the decompressed request body when using HandlerWithContentReader (streaming ContentReader) with Content-Encoding: gzip (or other supported encodings). A small compressed payload can expand beyond the configured payload limit and be processed by the application, enabling a payload size limit bypass and potential denial of service (CPU/memory exhaustion). This vulnerability is fixed in 0.35.0.

kin-openapi is a Go project for handling OpenAPI files. Prior to 0.131.0, when validating a request with a multipart/form-data schema, if the OpenAPI schema allows it, an attacker can upload a crafted ZIP file (e.g., a ZIP bomb), causing the server to consume all available system memory. The root cause comes from the ZipFileBodyDecoder, which is registered automatically by the module (contrary to what the documentation says). This vulnerability is fixed in 0.131.0.

cpp-httplib is a C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library. Prior to version 0.30.1, a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists in cpp-httplib due to the unsafe handling of compressed HTTP request bodies (Content-Encoding: gzip, br, etc.). The library validates the payload_max_length against the compressed data size received from the network, but does not limit the size of the decompressed data stored in memory.

Protocol::HTTP2 versions before 1.13 for Perl is vulnerable to a HTTP/2 Bomb. Protocol::HTTP2's inbound HPACK path has no header-list size limit, so a small HTTP/2 request can expand into large server memory (the "HTTP/2 bomb"). The headers_decode method materialises a full key+value copy per indexed reference with no running size check, and the stream_header_block_add method appends (since version 1.12) every CONTINUATION frame to the per-stream buffer unbounded. MAX_HEADER_LIST_SIZE (default 65536) is advertised in SETTINGS but never consulted on decode. It is absent from the decoder and from the :limits export tag.

urllib3 is a user-friendly HTTP client library for Python. Starting in version 1.0 and prior to 2.6.0, the Streaming API improperly handles highly compressed data. urllib3's streaming API is designed for the efficient handling of large HTTP responses by reading the content in chunks, rather than loading the entire response body into memory at once. When streaming a compressed response, urllib3 can perform decoding or decompression based on the HTTP Content-Encoding header (e.g., gzip, deflate, br, or zstd). The library must read compressed data from the network and decompress it until the requested chunk size is met. Any resulting decompressed data that exceeds the requested amount is held in an internal buffer for the next read operation. The decompression logic could cause urllib3 to fully decode a small amount of highly compressed data in a single operation. This can result in excessive resource consumption (high CPU usage and massive memory allocation for the decompressed data.

.NET and Visual Studio Denial of Service Vulnerability

In h2oai/h2o-3 version 3.46.0.2, a vulnerability exists where uploading and repeatedly parsing a large GZIP file can cause a denial of service. The server becomes unresponsive due to memory exhaustion and a large number of concurrent slow-running jobs. This issue arises from the improper handling of highly compressed data, leading to significant data amplification.

Envoy is a cloud-native high-performance proxy. In versions prior to 1.22.1 secompressors accumulate decompressed data into an intermediate buffer before overwriting the body in the decode/encodeBody. This may allow an attacker to zip bomb the decompressor by sending a small highly compressed payload. Maliciously constructed zip files may exhaust system memory and cause a denial of service. Users are advised to upgrade. Users unable to upgrade may consider disabling decompression.

The Apollo Router is a graph router written in Rust to run a federated supergraph that uses Apollo Federation. Versions 0.9.5 until 1.40.2 are subject to a Denial-of-Service (DoS) type vulnerability. When receiving compressed HTTP payloads, affected versions of the Router evaluate the `limits.http_max_request_bytes` configuration option after the entirety of the compressed payload is decompressed. If affected versions of the Router receive highly compressed payloads, this could result in significant memory consumption while the compressed payload is expanded. Router version 1.40.2 has a fix for the vulnerability. Those who are unable to upgrade may be able to implement mitigations at proxies or load balancers positioned in front of their Router fleet (e.g. Nginx, HAProxy, or cloud-native WAF services) by creating limits on HTTP body upload size.