Know every vulnerabilitybefore it knows you.
DevGuard continuously monitors your dependencies and alerts you when CVEs like this one affect your stack — with real-time threat intelligence built for developers.
GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9
No affected components available
Impact
A memory exhaustion bug exists in Wagtail's handling of uploaded images and documents. For both images and documents, files are loaded into memory during upload for additional processing. A user with access to upload images or documents through the Wagtail admin interface could upload a file so large that it results in a crash or denial of service.
The vulnerability is not exploitable by an ordinary site visitor without access to the Wagtail admin. It can only be exploited by admin users with permission to upload images or documents.
Image uploads are restricted to 10MB by default, however this validation only happens on the frontend and on the backend after the vulnerable code.
Patches
Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 4.1.4 (for the LTS 4.1 branch) and Wagtail 4.2.2 (for the current 4.2 branch).
Workarounds
Site owners who are unable to upgrade to the new versions are encouraged to add extra protections outside of Wagtail to limit the size of uploaded files. Exactly how this is done will vary based on your hosting environment, but here are a few references for common setups:
- Nginx:
client_max_body_size - Apache:
LimitRequestBody - Cloudflare: Already imposes a limit of 100MB - 500MB depending on plan
- CloudFront:
SizeConstraint - Traefik:
traefik.http.middlewares.limit.buffering.maxRequestBodyBytes
The changes themselves are deep inside Wagtail, making patching incredibly difficult.
The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is difficult for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability and may require special conditions. An attacker needs high-level or administrative privileges. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.
Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.
The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
Browse More
Continuously monitor your dependencies and get alerted when vulnerabilities like this one affect your stack.
Checkout DevGuard