Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in ninenines cowlib (cow_http_te module) allows Excessive Allocation. The chunked transfer-encoding parser in cow_http_te accepts an unbounded number of hex digits in the chunk-size field. Each digit causes a bignum multiplication (Len * 16 + digit), so parsing N hex digits requires O(N²) CPU work and O(N) memory. Additionally, when input is drip-fed, the parser discards the accumulated length on each partial read and restarts from zero on resumption, raising the cost to O(N³). An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this by sending an HTTP/1.1 request with Transfer-Encoding: chunked and a very long chunk-size hex string to cause denial of service through CPU exhaustion and memory amplification. This vulnerability is associated with program file src/cow_http_te.erl and program routines cow_http_te:stream_chunked/2, cow_http_te:chunked_len/4. This issue affects cowlib: from 0.6.0 before 2.16.1.
| Métrique | Valeur | Interprétation |
|---|---|---|
|
AV (Vecteur d'Attaque)
Attack Vector
|
Network (N)
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Exploit possible à distance via réseau (HTTP, API, etc.) |
|
AC (Complexité d'Attaque)
Attack Complexity
|
Low (L)
|
Peu de conditions requises pour exploiter |
|
PR (Privilèges Requis)
Privileges Required
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None (N)
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Aucune authentification requise |
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UI (Interaction Utilisateur)
User Interaction
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None (N)
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Aucune interaction utilisateur nécessaire |
|
S (Périmètre)
Scope
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Unchanged (U)
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Impact reste dans le périmètre du composant compromis |
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C (Impact Confidentialité)
Confidentiality Impact
|
None (N)
|
Aucune divulgation d'informations |
|
I (Impact Intégrité)
Integrity Impact
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None (N)
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Aucune modification de données possible |
|
A (Impact Disponibilité)
Availability Impact
|
High (H)
|
Interruption totale du service possible |
cowlib cow_http_te module: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability allows Excessive Allocation
Unbounded chunk-size hex digits in cowlib cause quadratic CPU and memory DoS