Skip to content

Memory amplification in SPDY frame parsing leads to denial of service

High
thaJeztah published GHSA-pc3f-x583-g7j2 Apr 15, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/moby/spdystream (Go)

Affected versions

<= v0.5.0

Patched versions

v0.5.1

Description

The SPDY/3 frame parser in spdystream does not validate
attacker-controlled counts and lengths before allocating memory. A
remote peer that can send SPDY frames to a service using spdystream can
cause the process to allocate gigabytes of memory with a small number of
malformed control frames, leading to an out-of-memory crash.
 
Three allocation paths in the receive side are affected:

  1. SETTINGS entry count -- The SETTINGS frame reader reads a 32-bit
    numSettings from the payload and allocates a slice of that size
    without checking it against the declared frame length. An attacker
    can set numSettings to a value far exceeding the actual payload,
    triggering a large allocation before any setting data is read.
     
  2. Header count -- parseHeaderValueBlock reads a 32-bit
    numHeaders from the decompressed header block and allocates an
    http.Header map of that size with no upper bound.
     
  3. Header field size -- Individual header name and value lengths are
    read as 32-bit integers and used directly as allocation sizes with
    no validation.
     
    Because SPDY header blocks are zlib-compressed, a small on-the-wire
    payload can decompress into attacker-controlled bytes that the parser
    interprets as 32-bit counts and lengths. A single crafted frame is
    enough to exhaust process memory.

Impact

 Any program that accepts SPDY connections using spdystream -- directly
or through a dependent library -- is affected. A remote peer that can
send SPDY frames to the service can crash the process with a single
crafted SPDY control frame, causing denial of service.

Affected versions

 github.com/moby/spdystream <= v0.5.0

Fix

 v0.5.1 addresses the receive-side allocation bugs and adds related
hardening:
 
Core fixes:
 

  • SETTINGS entry-count validation -- The SETTINGS frame reader now
    checks that numSettings is consistent with the declared frame
    length (numSettings <= (length-4)/8) before allocating.
     
  • Header count limit -- parseHeaderValueBlock enforces a maximum
    number of headers per frame (default: 1000).
     
  • Header field size limit -- Individual header name and value
    lengths are checked against a per-field size limit (default: 1 MiB)
    before allocation.
     
  • Connection closure on protocol error -- The connection read loop
    now closes the underlying net.Conn when it encounters an
    InvalidControlFrame error, preventing further exploitation on the
    same connection.
     
    Additional hardening:
     
  • Write-side bounds checks -- All frame write methods now verify
    that payloads fit within the 24-bit length field, preventing the
    library from producing invalid frames.
     
    Configurable limits:
     
  • Callers can adjust the defaults using NewConnectionWithOptions or
    the lower-level spdy.NewFramerWithOptions with functional options:
    WithMaxControlFramePayloadSize, WithMaxHeaderFieldSize, and
    WithMaxHeaderCount.
     

Severity

High

CVE ID

CVE-2026-35469

Weaknesses

No CWEs