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CVE-2026-1526 High

Undici has Unbounded Memory Consumption in WebSocket permessage-deflate Decompression

## Description The undici WebSocket client is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack via unbounded memory consumption during permessage-deflate decompression. When a WebSocket connection negotiates the permessage-deflate extension, the client decompresses incoming compressed frames without enforcing any limit on the decompressed data size. A malicious WebSocket server can send a small compressed frame (a "decompression bomb") that expands to an extremely large size in memory, causing the Node.js process to exhaust available memory and crash or become unresponsive. The vulnerability exists in the `PerMessageDeflate.decompress()` method, which accumulates all decompressed chunks in memory and concatenates them into a single Buffer without checking whether the total size exceeds a safe threshold. ## Impact - Remote denial of service against any Node.js application using undici's WebSocket client - A single compressed WebSocket frame of ~6 MB can decompress to ~1 GB or more - Memory exhaustion occurs in native/external memory, bypassing V8 heap limits - No application-level mitigation is possible as decompression occurs before message delivery ### Patches Users should upgrade to fixed versions. ### Workarounds No workaround are possible.

Exploit probability 1.2%
Published March 13, 2026
Required by Not available
Last source change March 18, 2026

02 / AFFECTED SOFTWARE

Affected packages

npm undici
Unknown Unknown

219 explicit affected versions

03 / CONNECTIONS

Connected vulnerabilities

04 / EVIDENCE

Source records

Open Source Vulnerabilities GHSA-vrm6-8vpv-qv8q

## Description The undici WebSocket client is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack via unbounded memory consumption during permessage-deflate decompression. When a WebSocket connection negotiates the permessage-deflate extension, the client decompresses incoming compressed frames without enforcing any limit on the decompressed data size. A malicious WebSocket server can send a small compressed frame (a "decompression bomb") that expands to an extremely large size in memory, causing the Node.js process to exhaust available memory and crash or become unresponsive. The vulnerability exists in the `PerMessageDeflate.decompress()` method, which accumulates all decompressed chunks in memory and concatenates them into a single Buffer without checking whether the total size exceeds a safe threshold. ## Impact - Remote denial of service against any Node.js application using undici's WebSocket client - A single compressed WebSocket frame of ~6 MB can decompress to ~1 GB or more - Memory exhaustion occurs in native/external memory, bypassing V8 heap limits - No application-level mitigation is possible as decompression occurs before message delivery ### Patches Users should upgrade to fixed versions. ### Workarounds No workaround are possible.

View original source
Open Source Vulnerabilities CVE-2026-1526

The undici WebSocket client is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack via unbounded memory consumption during permessage-deflate decompression. When a WebSocket connection negotiates the permessage-deflate extension, the client decompresses incoming compressed frames without enforcing any limit on the decompressed data size. A malicious WebSocket server can send a small compressed frame (a "decompression bomb") that expands to an extremely large size in memory, causing the Node.js process to exhaust available memory and crash or become unresponsive. The vulnerability exists in the PerMessageDeflate.decompress() method, which accumulates all decompressed chunks in memory and concatenates them into a single Buffer without checking whether the total size exceeds a safe threshold.

View original source

05 / REFERENCES

Further evidence