Starlette is a lightweight ASGI framework/toolkit. Prior to 0.49.1 , an unauthenticated attacker can send a crafted HTTP Range header that triggers quadratic-time processing in Starlettes FileResponse Range parsing/merging logic. This enables CPU exhaustion per request, causing denial‑of‑service for endpoints serving files (e.g., StaticFiles or any use of FileResponse). This vulnerability is fixed in 0.49.1.
An algorithm in a product has an inefficient worst-case computational complexity that may be detrimental to system performance and can be triggered by an attacker, typically using crafted manipulations that ensure that the worst case is being reached.