CVE-2021-22883: HTTP2 'unknownProtocol' cause Denial of Service by resource exhaustion

Affected Node.js versions are vulnerable to denial of service attacks when too many connection attempts with an 'unknownProtocol' are established. This leads to a leak of file descriptors. If a file descriptor limit is configured on the system, then the server is unable to accept new connections and prevent the process also from opening, e.g. a file. If no file descriptor limit is configured, then this lead to an excessive memory usage and cause the system to run out of memory.

All versions of the 15.x, 14.x, 12.x and 10.x releases lines

— Node.Js

Affected Node.js versions are vulnerable to denial of service attacks when too many connection attempts with an 'unknownProtocol' are established. This leads to a leak of file descriptors. If a file descriptor limit is configured on the system, then the server is unable to accept new connections and prevent the process also from opening, e.g. a file. If no file descriptor limit is configured, then this lead to an excessive memory usage and cause the system to run out of memory.

Reference: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/vulnerability/february-2021-security-releases/#update-23-feb-2021-security-releases-available

— Red Hat

HTTP2 'unknownProtocol' cause Denial of Service by resource exhaustion - Affected Node.js versions are vulnerable to denial of service attacks when too many connection attempts with an 'unknownProtocol' are established. This leads to a leak of file descriptors. If a file descriptor limit is configured on the system, then the server is unable to accept new connections and prevent the process also from opening, e.g. a file. If no file descriptor limit is configured, then this lead to an excessive memory usage and cause the system to run out of memory.

— Node.Js

Node.js before 10.24.0, 12.21.0, 14.16.0, and 15.10.0 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack when too many connection attempts with an 'unknownProtocol' are established. This leads to a leak of file descriptors. If a file descriptor limit is configured on the system, then the server is unable to accept new connections and prevent the process also from opening, e.g. a file. If no file descriptor limit is configured, then this lead to an excessive memory usage and cause the system to run out of memory.

Node.js is vulnerable to a denial of service, caused by a file descriptor leak. By making multiple attempts to connect with an 'unknownProtocol', an attacker could exploit this vulnerability to lead to an excessive memory usage and cause the system to run out of memory.

— IBM