Quadratic CPU blow-up reassembling fragmented WebSocket messages in Bandit
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Attack requirements
- None
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Fixed
Attack profile from CVSS 4.0 · CNA. Fix status from CNA. Impact type from CWE-407.
Summary
Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows unauthenticated remote denial of service via CPU exhaustion during WebSocket fragment reassembly. The size guard 'Elixir.Bandit.WebSocket.Connection':oversize_message?/2 called from handle_frame/3 in lib/bandit/websocket/connection.ex appends each non-final continuation frame to a left-nested iolist and then re-measures the entire accumulated buffer with IO.iodata_length/1 on every frame. Because the buffer grows by one element per frame and is fully re-traversed each time, reassembly work is quadratic (O(n^2)) in the number of continuation frames. The max_fragmented_message_size limit (default 8 MB) bounds total bytes but not frame count, and each frame can carry as little as one payload byte, so an attacker can send millions of tiny continuation frames using modest bandwidth to pin a CPU core for minutes to hours. Many concurrent connections can starve the whole server of CPU, denying service to legitimate users. The WebSocket read timeout does not help, because it is an idle timeout evaluated between reads and cannot preempt the synchronous reassembly work spent inside a single callback. This issue affects bandit: from 1.11.0 before 1.12.1.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- Yes
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA bandit (mtrudel) Fixed in 1.12.1
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-65623
- 2026-10-21 EPSS moved to the 50th–90th percentile
- 2026-10-25 EPSS moved to the below the 50th percentile
References
More mtrudel vulnerabilities
- TI-2026-81989 HTTP/2 request bodies made of 1-byte DATA frames amplify memory use in Bandit CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-74311 Bandit HTTP/2 send timers reset, letting trickles pin stream processes CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-52571 HTTP/2 connection-window starvation pins Plug processes indefinitely in Bandit CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-31007 WebSocket fragmented message reassembly unbounded in bandit CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-28689 HTTP/1 chunked decoder infinite loop on requests with trailer fields in bandit CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
- TI-2026-28686 HTTP/1 chunked body reader ignores length cap in bandit CVSS 4.0HIGH 8.7
Sources
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences