GHSA-9vqf-7f2p-gf9v CVE-2026-44456
Hono: bodyLimit() can be bypassed for chunked / unknown-length requests
- Severity
- 6.5 / 10
- Medium · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.22%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 12.40% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
- Fix
4.12.16- Upgrade hono to this version or later
Description
Summary
bodyLimit() does not reliably enforce maxSize for requests without a usable Content-Length (e.g. Transfer-Encoding: chunked). Oversized requests can reach handlers and return 200 instead of 413.
Details
For chunked / unknown-length requests, bodyLimit() wraps the body in a stream that counts bytes asynchronously, then runs the handler before the size decision is final. The 413 is only applied afterwards by checking c.error.
This lets the limit be bypassed when:
- the handler does not read the body,
- the handler reads only the first chunk(s) and returns, or
- the handler reads the body but swallows the read error in
try/catch.
In all three cases the handler returns 200 before the limit check completes (or its result is observed).
The fix is to enforce the size decision before next() runs, instead of retrofitting the response via c.error afterwards.
Impact
Applications relying on bodyLimit() as a hard boundary can be bypassed: oversized chunked requests can reach handler logic and return successful responses. Per-request data exposure is bounded by maxSize, but the documented guarantee — "oversized requests are rejected before business logic runs" — does not hold.
Credits
- @lalalala5678 (slow chunked / early return variants)
- @Jvr2022 (error handling bypass)
Affected versions
npm
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| hono | < 4.12.16 |
4.12.16 |
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.
hono npm → 4.12.16
- npm
npm install hono@4.12.16- yarn
yarn add hono@4.12.16- pnpm
pnpm add hono@4.12.16
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 6.5
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:N
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
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.
References
Advisories
Packages
Other links
Timeline
- Published
- Last updated by the source
- Latest EPSS score
Related advisories
| Advisory | Severity | Why it's related |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-5r4p-p66f-jhc7 Hono: `serveStatic` decodes the request path a second time, leading to bypass of middleware on static paths | Medium | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-hxh3-vqpv-xpqv hono/jsx renders plain strings unescaped in boundary components, leading to XSS | Low | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-gqvv-2mrq-wpjv Hono: Incomplete fix for CVE-2026-39408: `toSSG()` still writes files outside the output directory | Medium | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-g6gw-c38x-mqfc Hono: Unbounded dot-notation nesting in `parseBody()` can cause memory exhaustion | Medium | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-crvj-82cr-hjcx Hono: Query parser reads parameters after the URL fragment, causing cache-key and proxy interpretation differentials | Medium | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-f23p-vx2j-j53r Hono: `memo()` retains SSR output across requests, leading to cross-user data disclosure | Medium | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-79qm-7rj5-m7r9 Hono: Proxy Helper does not remove response headers listed in the `Connection` header | Low | Also affects hono |
| GHSA-54fx-42gc-7vw4 Hono: Algorithmic Complexity DoS in Language Middleware | Medium | Also affects hono |
MergeHarbor checks every repository's dependencies against this database, ranks what matters by exploitability and reachability, routes it to the owning team and opens the fix pull request.
Check your repos with MergeHarbor