Django REST framework CVE-2026-114136

No special conditions - remote unauthenticated exploitation against default configurations of Django REST framework (3.6.4 up to but not including 3.18.2), because JSONParser is part of the default parser set and any reachable endpoint accepting a JSON body is affected. Exploitation only requires the attacker to set a byte-transform codec (e.g. bz2_codec, zlib_codec, base64_codec) as the Content-Type charset and send a correspondingly compressed body. Limiting factors: the deployment must expose at least one JSON-accepting DRF endpoint; impact is bounded to per-worker memory pressure rather than host compromise; and an upstream proxy or WAF that strips or normalizes nonstandard Content-Type charset values could blunt the attack. DATA_UPLOAD_MAX_MEMORY_SIZE does not mitigate it because that limit is checked only against the compressed wire bytes before expansion.

All provided signals point to a genuine but bounded availability risk. The CVSS 3.1 vector (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, base 7.5) is fully consistent with the description: a remote, unauthenticated attacker over the network, with low complexity and no user interaction, achieves a high availability impact and zero confidentiality or integrity impact (CWE-409, data amplification / resource consumption). This is a denial-of-service memory-exhaustion flaw, not a code-execution or data-exposure issue. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public POC were provided, so exploitation is currently 'no public exploit identified at time of analysis' - however, the GitHub advisory, fix commit, and 3.18.2 release notes are public and explain the mechanism in detail, which lowers the bar to reproduce it even though no weaponized exploit is cited. Reach is broad because the vulnerable JSONParser is in DRF's default parser set and any endpoint accepting a JSON body is affected, but the ceiling is lower than the raw 7.5 implies: impact is confined to per-worker memory pressure rather than host compromise, and deployments behind proxies or WAFs that strip or normalize unusual Content-Type charset parameters may be shielded. One input inconsistency must be flagged: the 'Information Disclosure' tag conflicts with the CVSS vector (C:N) and the description - this is an availability/DoS issue, so that tag is mislabeled.

A remote unauthenticated attacker sends a very small HTTP request to any DRF endpoint that accepts JSON, setting the Content-Type charset parameter to a byte-transform codec such as bz2_codec and supplying a tiny highly-compressed body. Django enforces DATA_UPLOAD_MAX_MEMORY_SIZE only against the compressed wire bytes, so the limit passes, but JSONParser then expands the body through codecs.getreader, inflating it massively in memory; repeating this across workers exhausts per-worker memory and degrades or disables the API. No public exploit is cited, but the fix commit documents the mechanism precisely.