GHSA-qrvq-68c2-7grw BIT-nats-2026-27571 CVE-2026-27571 GO-2026-4533
nats-server websockets are vulnerable to pre-auth memory DoS
- Severity
- 5.9 / 10
- High · CVSS 3.1
- Exploit chance (EPSS)
- 0.54%
- Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 45.60% of scored vulnerabilities.
- Known exploited
- No
- Not in CISA's catalog
- Weakness
- CWE-409 Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)
- CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
- Fix
2.11.12- Upgrade github.com/nats-io/nats-server/v2 to this version or later
Description
Impact
The WebSockets handling of NATS messages handles compressed messages via the WebSockets negotiated compression. The implementation bound the memory size of a NATS message but did not independently bound the memory consumption of the memory stream when constructing a NATS message which might then fail validation for size reasons.
An attacker can use a compression bomb to cause excessive memory consumption, often resulting in the operating system terminating the server process.
The use of compression is negotiated before authentication, so this does not require valid NATS credentials to exploit.
The fix was to bounds the decompression to fail once the message was too large, instead of continuing on.
Patches
This was released in nats-server without being highlighted as a security issue. It should have been, this was an oversight. Per the NATS security policy, because this does not require a valid user, it is CVE-worthy.
This was fixed in the v2.11 series with v2.11.12 and in the v2.12 series with v2.12.3.
Workarounds
This only affects deployments which use WebSockets and which expose the network port to untrusted end-points.
References
This was reported to the NATS maintainers by Pavel Kohout of Aisle Research (www.aisle.com).
Affected versions
Go
| Package | Vulnerable | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
| github.com/nats-io/nats-server | <= 1.4.1 |
No fix yet |
| github.com/nats-io/nats-server | all versions |
No fix yet |
| github.com/nats-io/nats-server/v2 | < 2.11.12 |
2.11.12 |
| github.com/nats-io/nats-server/v2 | >= 2.12.0-RC.1, < 2.12.3 |
2.12.3 |
| github.com/nats-io/nats-server/v2 | < 2.11.12>= 2.12.0-RC.1, < 2.12.3 |
2.11.122.12.3 |
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/nats-io/nats-server/v2 Go → 2.11.12
- go
go get github.com/nats-io/nats-server/v2@v2.11.12 && go mod tidy
Severity breakdown
CVSS 3.1 5.9
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
- Attack vector
- Network
- Attack complexity
- High
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
Weakness
CWE-409: Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)
The product does not handle or incorrectly handles a compressed input with a very high compression ratio that produces a large output.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| GHSA-8r68-gvr4-jh7j NATS is vulnerable to pre-auth DoS through WebSockets client service | Medium | Linked by the source |
| GHSA-pq2q-rcw4-3hr6 NATS: Pre-auth remote server crash via WebSocket frame length overflow in wsRead | High | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
| GHSA-3f24-pcvm-5jqc NATS has mTLS verify_and_map authentication bypass via incorrect Subject DN matching | Medium | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
| GHSA-55h8-8g96-x4hj NATS: Leafnode connections allow spoofing of Nats-Request-Info identity headers | Medium | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
| GHSA-pwx7-fx9r-hr4h NATS Server: Incomplete Stripping of Nats-Request-Info Header Allows Identity Spoofing | Medium | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
| GHSA-9983-vrx2-fg9c NATS JetStream has an authorization bypass through its Management API | Medium | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
| GHSA-vprv-35vv-q339 NATS has pre-auth server panic via leafnode handling | High | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
| GHSA-jxxm-27vp-c3m5 NATS allows MQTT clients to bypass ACL checks | Medium | Also affects github.com/nats-io/nats-server |
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