First published: Tue Jan 10 2017(Updated: )
A HTTP/2 implementation built using any version of the Python HPACK library between v1.0.0 and v2.2.0 could be targeted for a denial of service attack, specifically a so-called "HPACK Bomb" attack. This attack occurs when an attacker inserts a header field that is exactly the size of the HPACK dynamic header table into the dynamic header table. The attacker can then send a header block that is simply repeated requests to expand that field in the dynamic table. This can lead to a gigantic compression ratio of 4,096 or better, meaning that 16kB of data can decompress to 64MB of data on the target machine.
Credit: cve@mitre.org cve@mitre.org
Affected Software | Affected Version | How to fix |
---|---|---|
pip/hpack | >=1.0.0<2.3.0 | 2.3.0 |
Python HPACK | =1.0 | |
Python HPACK | =2.0 | |
Python HPACK | =2.0.1 | |
Python HPACK | =2.1.1 | |
Python HPACK | =2.2 | |
Python Hyper | =0.4 | |
Python Hyper | =0.6 | |
=1.0 | ||
=2.0 | ||
=2.0.1 | ||
=2.1.1 | ||
=2.2 | ||
=0.4 | ||
=0.6 |
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CVE-2016-6581 has a medium severity rating due to its potential for denial of service attacks.
To fix CVE-2016-6581, upgrade the Python HPACK library to version 2.3.0 or higher.
Versions of the HPACK library between 1.0.0 and 2.2.0 are affected by CVE-2016-6581.
CVE-2016-6581 relates to a denial of service attack, specifically an HPACK Bomb attack.
CVE-2016-6581 specifically affects implementations using the Python HPACK library, not PHP.