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GHSA-6mjq-h674-j845

MediumCVSS 6.5 / 10
Published Jun 20, 2023·Last modified Feb 4, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

Summary

The SniHandler can allocate up to 16MB of heap for each channel during the TLS handshake. When the handler or the channel does not have an idle timeout, it can be used to make a TCP server using the SniHandler to allocate 16MB of heap.

Details

The SniHandler class is a handler that waits for the TLS handshake to configure a SslHandler according to the indicated server name by the ClientHello record. For this matter it allocates a ByteBuf using the value defined in the ClientHello record.

Normally the value of the packet should be smaller than the handshake packet but there are not checks done here and the way the code is written, it is possible to craft a packet that makes the SslClientHelloHandler

1/ allocate a 16MB ByteBuf 2/ not fail decode method in buffer 3/ get out of the loop without an exception

The combination of this without the use of a timeout makes easy to connect to a TCP server and allocate 16MB of heap memory per connection.

Impact

If the user has no idle timeout handler configured it might be possible for a remote peer to send a client hello packet which lead the server to buffer up to 16MB of data per connection. This could lead to a OutOfMemoryError and so result in a DDOS.

Risk Scores
Base Score
6.5

The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker needs basic access or low-level 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.

Threat Intelligence
6.0

Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.

EPSS
2.46%

The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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