HTTP/2 cookie crumb join expands a small HPACK header block into an unbounded allocation in Bandit
What fixes it
A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.
Description
Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification) vulnerability in the HTTP/2 implementation of mtrudel bandit allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to exhaust server memory via a small HPACK-compressed HEADERS block. The block stores one large cookie value in the HPACK dynamic table and then references it tens of thousands of times with 1-byte indexed fields. In the reporter's run, a 49 KB block made a server with default settings allocate a 183 MB cookie binary before any application code ran, and every concurrent stream can repeat the cost.
Bandit.HTTP2.Connection caps only the compressed block (max_header_block_size), and its check of the decoded list against max_header_list_size never fires because that setting defaults to :infinity. combine_cookie_crumbs/1 in lib/bandit/http2/stream.ex then joins every crumb into one binary.
This issue affects bandit: from 0.3.3 before 1.14.0.
Text from CVE List
Affected versions 2
- banditaffected: 0.3.3 before 1.14.0CVE List
- banditaffected: 44bf969cd59851622fb6ee4d16227fbc39a77fb4 before 220b9dfd27f9a21305be2afc75cbe585ddc24e7aCVE List
References 5
- github.com/mtrudel/bandit/commit/44bf969cd59851622fb6ee4d16227fbc39a77fb4Fixvia CVE List
- github.com/mtrudel/bandit/commit/220b9dfd27f9a21305be2afc75cbe585ddc24e7aFixvia CVE List
- github.com/mtrudel/bandit/security/advisories/GHSA-7gfj-7gvq-3xqjAdvisoryvia CVE List
- cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-109584.htmlReferencevia CVE List
- osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-109584Referencevia CVE List