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HTTP header size limits not enforced, allowing DoS from unauthenticated requests

High
russellb published GHSA-rxc4-3w6r-4v47 Aug 20, 2025

Package

pip vllm (pip)

Affected versions

>=0.1.0

Patched versions

0.10.1.1

Description

Summary

A Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability can be triggered by sending a single HTTP GET request with an extremely large header to an HTTP endpoint. This results in server memory exhaustion, potentially leading to a crash or unresponsiveness. The attack does not require authentication, making it exploitable by any remote user.

Details

The vulnerability leverages the abuse of HTTP headers. By setting a header such as X-Forwarded-For to a very large value like ("A" * 5_800_000_000), the server's HTTP parser or application logic may attempt to load the entire request into memory, overwhelming system resources.

Impact

What kind of vulnerability is it? Who is impacted?
Type of vulnerability: Denial of Service (DoS)

Resolution

Upgrade to a version of vLLM that includes appropriate HTTP limits by deafult, or use a proxy in front of vLLM which provides protection against this issue.

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2025-48956

Weaknesses

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources. Learn more on MITRE.

Credits