urllib3 version 2.6.3 is vulnerable to a decompression bomb bypass in its streaming API (preload_content=False) when using Brotli support. The issue arises due to three independent code paths in response.py that bypass the max_length protection introduced in version 2.6.0 to mitigate CVE-2025-66471. Specifically, negative max_length values can be produced due to buffer arithmetic in read(), flush_decoder unconditionally overrides max_length to -1, and _flush_decoder() passes no limit at all, defaulting to unlimited decompression. This allows a malicious HTTP server to trigger an out-of-memory (OOM) condition by decompressing large payloads into memory, leading to a denial of service (DoS). The vulnerability affects urllib3 2.6.3 and Brotli 1.2.0 and impacts applications and libraries using requests or urllib3 to stream content from untrusted sources.
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