Redlib is an alternative private front-end to Reddit. A vulnerability has been identified in Redlib where an attacker can cause a denial-of-service (DOS) condition by submitting a specially crafted base2048-encoded DEFLATE decompression bomb to the restore_preferences form. This leads to excessive memory consumption and potential system instability, which can be exploited to disrupt Redlib instances. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.36.0.
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.