CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-32640

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Published: May 25, 2021 | Modified: Nov 07, 2023
CVSS 3.x
5.3
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS 2.x
5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
5.3 LOW
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

ws is an open source WebSocket client and server library for Node.js. A specially crafted value of the Sec-Websocket-Protocol header can be used to significantly slow down a ws server. The vulnerability has been fixed in ws@7.4.6 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/00c425ec77993773d823f018f64a5c44e17023ff). In vulnerable versions of ws, the issue can be mitigated by reducing the maximum allowed length of the request headers using the --max-http-header-size=size and/or the maxHeaderSize options.

Weakness

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Ws Ws_project 5.0.0 (including) 6.2.2 (excluding)
Ws Ws_project 7.0.0 (including) 7.4.6 (excluding)
Node-ws Ubuntu bionic *
Node-ws Ubuntu groovy *
Node-ws Ubuntu hirsute *
Node-ws Ubuntu impish *
Node-ws Ubuntu kinetic *
Node-ws Ubuntu trusty *
Node-ws Ubuntu upstream *
Node-ws Ubuntu xenial *

Extended Description

Limited resources include memory, file system storage, database connection pool entries, and CPU. If an attacker can trigger the allocation of these limited resources, but the number or size of the resources is not controlled, then the attacker could cause a denial of service that consumes all available resources. This would prevent valid users from accessing the product, and it could potentially have an impact on the surrounding environment. For example, a memory exhaustion attack against an application could slow down the application as well as its host operating system. There are at least three distinct scenarios which can commonly lead to resource exhaustion:

Resource exhaustion problems are often result due to an incorrect implementation of the following situations:

Potential Mitigations

  • 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 is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.

References