Puma is a Ruby/Rack web server built for parallelism. From 5.5.0 until 7.2.1 and 8.0.2, when PROXY protocol v1 support is enabled, Puma reads incoming bytes into an internal buffer while waiting for CRLF to determine whether a PROXY v1 line is present, allowing an attacker that continuously sends bytes without CRLF to cause unbounded in-process memory growth and additional CPU cost from repeatedly scanning the growing buffer. This issue is fixed in versions 7.2.1 and 8.0.2.
Weakness
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
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.
Related Attack Patterns
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html
References
- https://github.com/puma/puma/commit/439c6136d9c2275721b7864db3ee78af7c80889f
- https://github.com/puma/puma/commit/ebe9db3929ab8299d19c8f5b41e8ef4f4b22fa58
- https://github.com/puma/puma/releases/tag/v7.2.1
- https://github.com/puma/puma/releases/tag/v8.0.2
- https://github.com/puma/puma/security/advisories/GHSA-qpgp-93vx-g8v8