Memory exhaustion in Furl for Perl via unbounded decompression
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- No fix listed
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CISA ADP. Fix status from CNA.
Summary
Furl versions through 3.15 for Perl decompress HTTP response bodies with no size limit. The client inflates gzip, x-gzip and deflate response bodies and appends the output to the response string without any cap, even when the request did not ask for compression (CWE-409). A malicious server, or an attacker on a plain HTTP connection, can send a small compressed response that expands until it exhausts memory and ends the process.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
Description from the CNA
Furl versions through 3.15 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via unbounded decompression of HTTP responses. Furl inflates a response body sent with a gzip, x-gzip or deflate Content-Encoding and appends the output to the response string with no size limit. It does this whether or not the request asked for compression, and no option caps the decompressed size. Responses read with write_file or write_code are streamed rather than held in memory. A malicious server, or an attacker on a plain HTTP connection, can send a small compressed response that expands to exhaust the client's memory and end the process.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- 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
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Furl | up to 3.15 | — | No fix listed | CNA |
- Furl Vendor— Affected up to 3.15 Fixed in — No fix listed CNA
Remediation
The sources list no fixed version for Furl. Responses read with write_file or write_code are streamed rather than held in memory.
Written with Claude Haiku 5.5 from the sources below · 2026-11-06
Timeline
- 2026-11-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-65059
- 2026-11-02 Alias added: GHSA-m2rh-hmhf-hh5g
- 2026-11-06 CVSS score added · CISA ADP
- 2026-11-06 CISA SSVC decision points changed
References
Sources
- CVE-2026-65059 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-65059 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-m2rh-hmhf-hh5g · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
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