Unbounded connection acceptance leads to file handle exhaustion
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and GitHub. Impact type from CWE-400.
Summary
blaze is a Scala library for building asynchronous pipelines, with a focus on network IO. All servers running blaze-core before version 0.14.15 are affected by a vulnerability in which unbounded connection acceptance leads to file handle exhaustion. Blaze, accepts connections unconditionally on a dedicated thread pool. This has the net effect of amplifying degradation in services that are unable to handle their current request load, since incoming connections are still accepted and added to an unbounded queue. Each connection allocates a socket handle, which drains a scarce OS resource. This can also confound higher level circuit breakers which work based on detecting failed connections. The vast majority of affected users are using it as part of http4s-blaze-server <= 0.21.16. http4s provides a mechanism for limiting open connections, but is enforced inside the Blaze accept loop, after the connection is accepted and the socket opened. Thus, the limit only prevents the number of connections which can be simultaneously processed, not the number of connections which can be held open. The issue is fixed in version 0.14.15 for "NIO1SocketServerGroup". A "maxConnections" parameter is added, with a default value of 512. Concurrent connections beyond this limit are rejected. To run unbounded, which is not recommended, set a negative number. The "NIO2SocketServerGroup" has no such setting and is now deprecated. There are several possible workarounds described in the refrenced GitHub Advisory GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| http4s | blaze | before 0.14.15 | 0.14.15 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | org.http4s:blaze-core_2.11 (Maven) | before 0.14.15 | 0.14.15 | Patch available | GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc |
| — | org.http4s:blaze-core_2.12 (Maven) | before 0.14.15 | 0.14.15 | Patch available | GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc |
| — | org.http4s:blaze-core_2.13 (Maven) | before 0.14.15 | 0.14.15 | Patch available | GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc |
- blaze Vendorhttp4s Affected before 0.14.15 Fixed in 0.14.15 Patch available CNA
- org.http4s:blaze-core_2.11 (Maven) Vendor— Affected before 0.14.15 Fixed in 0.14.15 Patch available GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc
- org.http4s:blaze-core_2.12 (Maven) Vendor— Affected before 0.14.15 Fixed in 0.14.15 Patch available GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc
- org.http4s:blaze-core_2.13 (Maven) Vendor— Affected before 0.14.15 Fixed in 0.14.15 Patch available GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc
Remediation
- Fix · CNA blaze (http4s) Fixed in 0.14.15
- Fix · GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc org.http4s:blaze-core_2.11 (Maven) Fixed in 0.14.15 Advisory →
- Fix · GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc org.http4s:blaze-core_2.12 (Maven) Fixed in 0.14.15 Advisory →
- Fix · GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc org.http4s:blaze-core_2.13 (Maven) Fixed in 0.14.15 Advisory →
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2021-21293
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc
References
Sources
- CVE-2021-21293 · CVE Program
- CVE-2021-21293 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-xmw9-q7x9-j5qc · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
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