GHSA-6fwg-jrfw-ff7p CVE-2023-47633 GO-2023-2377
Traefik docker container using 100% CPU
- Severity
- 7.5 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 1.27%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 69.80% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
- CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
- Fix
- Available
- 2 packages have a fixed version
Description
Summary
The traefik docker container uses 100% CPU when it serves as its own backend, which is an automatically generated route resulting from the Docker integration in the default configuration.
Details
While attempting to set up Traefik to handle traffic for Docker containers, I observed in the webUI a rule with the following information:
Host(traefik-service) | webwebsecure | traefik-service@docker | traefik-service
I assumed that this is something internal; however, I wondered why it would have a host rule on the web entrypoint configured.
So I have send a request with that hostname with curl -v --resolve "traefik-service:80:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" http://traefik-service. That made my whole server unresponsive.
I assume the name comes from a docker container with that name, traefik itself:
localhost ~ # docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
d1414e74aec7 traefik:v2.10 "/entrypoint.sh trae…" 4 minutes ago Up 4 minutes 0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, :::80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp, :::443->443/tcp, 127.0.0.1:8080->8080/tcp traefik.service
PoC
-
Start traefik with
docker run --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -p 80:80 --name foo -p 8080:8080 traefik:v2.10 --api.insecure=true --providers.docker -
curl -v --resolve "foo:80:127.0.0.1" http://foo
looks like this creates an endless loop of request.
Knowing the name of the docker container seems to be enough to trigger this, if the docker backend is used.
Impact
Server is unreachable and uses 100% CPU
Affected versions
Go
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| github.com/traefik/traefik | all versions |
No fix yet |
| github.com/traefik/traefik/v2 | < 2.10.6 |
2.10.6 |
| github.com/traefik/traefik/v3 | < 3.0.0-beta5 |
3.0.0-beta5 |
How to fix
Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.
github.com/traefik/traefik/v2 Go → 2.10.6
- go
go get github.com/traefik/traefik/v2@v2.10.6 && go mod tidy
github.com/traefik/traefik/v3 Go → 3.0.0-beta5
- go
go get github.com/traefik/traefik/v3@v3.0.0-beta5 && go mod tidy
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 7.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
How to prevent it
- Architecture and Design: Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
- Architecture and Design: Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed. The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question. The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
- Architecture and Design: Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
- Implementation: Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
The product allocates a reusable resource or group of resources on behalf of an actor without imposing any intended restrictions on the size or number of resources that can be allocated.
How to prevent it
- Requirements: Clearly specify the minimum and maximum expectations for capabilities, and dictate which behaviors are acceptable when resource allocation reaches limits.
- Architecture and Design: Limit the amount of resources that are accessible to unprivileged users. Set per-user limits for resources. Allow the system administrator to define these limits. Be careful to avoid CWE-410.
- Architecture and Design: Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place, and it will help the administrator to identify who is committing the abuse. The login application should be protected against DoS attacks as much as possible. Limiting the database access, perhaps by caching result sets, can help minimize the resources expended. To further limit the potential for a DoS attack, consider tracking the rate of requests received from users and blocking requests that exceed a defined rate threshold.
- Implementation: Assume all input is malicious. Use an "accept known good" input validation strategy, i.e., use a list of acceptable inputs that strictly conform to specifications. Reject any input that does not strictly conform to specifications, or transform it into something that does. When performing input validation, consider all potentially relevant properties, including length, type of input, the full range of acceptable values, missing or extra inputs, syntax, consistency across related fields, and conformance to business rules. As an example of business rule logic, "boat" may be syntactically valid because it only contains alphanumeric characters, but it is not valid if the input is only expected to contain colors such as "red" or "blue." Do not rely exclusively on looking for malicious or malformed inputs. This is likely to miss at least one undesirable input, especially if the code's environment changes. This can give attackers enough room to bypass the intended validation. However, denylists can be useful for detecting potential attacks or determining which inputs are so malformed that they should be rejected outright.
- Architecture and Design: For any security checks that are performed on the client side, ensure that these checks are duplicated on the server side, in order to avoid CWE-602. Attackers can bypass the client-side checks by modifying values after the checks have been performed, or by changing the client to remove the client-side checks entirely. Then, these modified values would be submitted to the server.
- Architecture and Design: Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, typically by using increasing time delays uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed. The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question. The second solution can be difficult to effectively institute -- and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply requires more resources on the part of the attacker.
- Architecture and Design: Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
- Architecture and Design, Implementation: If the program must fail, ensure that it fails gracefully (fails closed). There may be a temptation to simply let the program fail poorly in cases such as low memory conditions, but an attacker may be able to assert control before the software has fully exited. Alternately, an uncontrolled failure could cause cascading problems with other downstream components; for example, the program could send a signal to a downstream process so the process immediately knows that a problem has occurred and has a better chance of recovery. Ensure that all failures in resource allocation place the system into a safe posture.
- Operation, Architecture and Design: Use quotas or other resource-limiting settings provided by the operating system or environment. For example, when managing system resources in POSIX, setrlimit() can be used to set limits for certain types of resources, and getrlimit() can determine how many resources are available. However, these functions are not available on all operating systems. When the current levels get close to the maximum that is defined for the application (see CWE-770), then limit the allocation of further resources to privileged users; alternately, begin releasing resources for less-privileged users. While this mitigation may protect the system from attack, it will not necessarily stop attackers from adversely impacting other users. Ensure that the application performs the appropriate error checks and error handling in case resources become unavailable (CWE-703).
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GO-2026-6558 Traefik: BasicAuth singleflight coalescing reintroduces an unauthenticated username-enumeration timing oracle | Medium | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GHSA-f52w-8j3h-j724 Traefik: Rootless HTTP/1 request-target routes as "/" but is forwarded verbatim, bypassing path-scoped routing, middleware guards and access logging | High | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GHSA-w4v4-9rw7-5326 Traefik: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling') and Incorrect Authorization | Critical | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GHSA-qqjf-53cj-pwvv Traefik HTTP/3 Backend NTLM Connection Reuse | Critical | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GO-2026-6467 Traefik entrypoint header-name sanitization bypassed via request trailers | High | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GHSA-rf44-j88r-hh8c Traefik: ForwardAuth identity spoofing via dot-form header alias | High | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GHSA-7ghq-v6jf-g56c Traefik: respondingTimeouts.readTimeout is not applied to HTTP/3, leaving slow-body uploads unbounded | Medium | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
| GHSA-62fc-8686-hfmq Traefik: `allowCrossNamespace=false` bypass via `@kubernetescrd` TraefikService backendRef | Medium | Also affects github.com/traefik/traefik |
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