A vulnerability in BerriAI/litellm, as of commit 26c03c9, allows unauthenticated users to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by exploiting the use of ast.literal_eval to parse user input. This function is not safe and is prone to DoS attacks, which can crash the litellm Python server.
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
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.