Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessOpen HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 connection to ATS
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DeliveryRequest dechunked responses on many streams
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ExploitRead stream data very slowly
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ExecutionPer-stream buffer cap bypassed, memory grows unbounded
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ImpactServer memory exhausted, proxy denial of service
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V2 - Validation and Business Logic Resource consumption limits
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation requires that the Apache Traffic Server instance is serving HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 and that the affected code path dechunks (strips chunked transfer-encoding from) upstream responses - that dechunking-over-HTTP/2-or-HTTP/3 condition is the specific prerequisite. The attacker must act as a slow-reading client, deliberately consuming response data slowly across streams to prevent buffer drainage (reflected by CVSS AT:P). No authentication is needed (PR:N) and no user interaction is required (UI:N). Limiting factors: the attack only works against the HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 handling path (an instance serving only HTTP/1.1, or with H2/H3 disabled, is not exposed), and success depends on sustaining slow reads and holding streams open long enough to grow memory, so simple per-connection timeouts or memory limits reduce feasibility. |
| Impact | The CVSS 4.0 base score is 8.2 (High) with vector AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N and impact isolated to availability (VA:H, VC/VI:N). The AT:P (attack requirement present) metric is meaningful here: exploitation depends on the attacker sustaining slow reads against streams carrying dechunked HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 responses, so it is not a single-packet trigger. No EPSS score, KEV listing, or POC was provided, so real-world exploitation pressure appears low-to-moderate: this is a resource-exhaustion DoS, not RCE or data disclosure. Priority should be driven by exposure - internet-facing ATS instances serving HTTP/2/3 warrant prompt patching, while the absence of any confidentiality/integrity impact and the timing-dependent attack requirement make this lower urgency than a network RCE of comparable score. No public exploit identified at time of analysis; no signal of active exploitation. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker opens an HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 connection to an internet-facing Apache Traffic Server instance and requests resources whose upstream responses are chunked and dechunked by the proxy. By reading the returned stream extremely slowly (or not at all) across many concurrent streams, the attacker prevents the server from draining its buffers, causing memory to grow without bound until the process is starved or killed. No authentication or user interaction is required; no public POC is currently identified. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv2 – Jul 29, 2026
Memory-exhaustion denial of service in Apache Traffic Server (versions 8.0.0-8.1.9, 9.0.0-9.2.14, and 10.0.0-10.1.3) arises because the proxy drops its per-stream buffer cap while dechunking HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 responses. A remote, unauthenticated attacker acting as a deliberately slow client can force unbounded buffering and exhaust server memory, degrading or crashing the caching proxy. This is a pure availability issue (CWE-400) with no confidentiality or integrity impact; no public exploit has been identified at time of analysis.
Earlier versions of this analysis (1)
Denial of service in Apache Traffic Server (8.0.0-8.1.9, 9.0.0-9.2.14, 10.0.0-10.1.3) allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to exhaust server memory by acting as a slow client while ATS dechunks HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 responses, because the per-stream buffer cap is dropped during dechunking. Rated CVSS 7.5 (availability-only, AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N), the flaw enables crash or degradation of the caching proxy with no confidentiality or integrity impact. No public exploit identified at time of analysis and the CVE is not in CISA KEV.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: upgrade to Apache Traffic Server 9.2.15 or 10.1.4, which restore the per-stream buffer cap during dechunking (advisory: https://lists.apache.org/thread/5prl9glcm9g2swnq9hqxvnokylm1gr6d). Users still on the 8.0.0-8.1.9 branch should migrate to a fixed 9.2.15 or 10.1.4 release, since no patched 8.x version is named. Where immediate upgrade is not possible, compensating controls include disabling HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support so responses are not handled by the vulnerable dechunking path (trade-off: loss of multiplexing/performance benefits for clients), placing per-connection memory limits, request timeouts, and connection-rate limits in front of ATS to bound how long a slow client can hold streams open, and rate-limiting or restricting untrusted client access to the proxy. These mitigations reduce but do not fully eliminate the resource-exhaustion window and may affect legitimate slow or high-latency clients.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
Apache Traffic Server is a high-performance caching HTTP/HTTPS forward and reverse proxy widely used in CDN and edge-caching deployments. The flaw sits in its HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 response-handling path: when the server dechunks (removes chunked transfer-encoding framing from) an upstream response before delivering it to the client, it fails to enforce the per-stream buffer limit that normally bounds how much data can accumulate in memory for a single stream. This is a classic CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption pattern - a missing or bypassed flow-control/backpressure check lets a client that reads slowly cause the server to buffer response bytes without bound. The CPE cpe:2.3:a:apache_software_foundation:apache_traffic_server covers all affected branches.
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Severity by source
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Remote unauthenticated slow-client trigger with no privileges or user interaction (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N); impact is availability-only memory exhaustion, so C:N/I:N/A:H.
Primary rating from Vendor (apache).
CVSS VectorVendor: apache
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
Apache Traffic Server drops the per-stream buffer cap when dechunking HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 responses, letting a slow client exhaust server memory.
This issue affects Apache Traffic Server: from 8.0.0 through 8.1.9, from 9.0.0 through 9.2.14, from 10.0.0 through 10.1.3.
Users are recommended to upgrade to version 9.2.15 or 10.1.4, which fix the issue.
Executive ViewAI
Apache Traffic Server (versions 8.0.0-10.1.3) suffers from a memory-exhaustion vulnerability that allows unauthenticated attackers to crash or severely degrade caching proxy services. An attacker can simulate a slow client connection to force unbounded buffering during HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 dechunking, exhausting server memory without any benefit to the attacker. Organizations dependent on Traffic Server for content delivery face potential service outages and performance degradation until mitigations are deployed.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: (1) Enforce strict connection idle timeouts and request completion deadlines at the network perimeter or load balancer to reject clients exceeding thresholds. (2) Configure stream-level buffer limits as tightly as legitimate traffic profiles allow. (3) Deploy client-side rate limiting and request-size caps to prevent sustained slow-client attacks. (4) Monitor server memory consumption and configure automatic memory alerts at 80% utilization. (5) Isolate Traffic Server behind reverse-proxy or API gateway that enforces connection pooling and request pipelining limits. (6) Consider geographic or IP-reputation filtering to restrict traffic origins if feasible.
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
More in Apache Traffic Server
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Remote denial of service in Apache Traffic Server (8.0.0-8.1.9, 9.0.0-9.2.14, 10.0.0-10.1.3) allows unauthenticated atta
Out-of-bounds write and integer overflow in Apache Traffic Server's MIME and HTTP header parsing lets remote attackers c
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Request smuggling in Apache Traffic Server 8.0.0 through 8.1.11, 9.0.0 through 9.2.15, 10.0.0 through 10.1.4, and 10.2.0
Unauthenticated remote attackers can drive HTTP transactions to completion against Apache Traffic Server instances that
Denial of service in Apache Traffic Server 8.0.0-8.1.9, 9.0.0-9.2.14, and 10.0.0-10.1.3 lets remote unauthenticated atta
Apache Traffic Server 9.2.15, 10.1.4, and 10.2.0 can be driven into a denial-of-service condition through log amplificat
Out-of-bounds write and limit-bypass flaws in several experimental plugins shipped with Apache Traffic Server (8.0.0-8.1
Improper certificate generation in the Apache Traffic Server certifier plugin lets remote attackers dictate the contents
Memory corruption in Apache Traffic Server's remap configuration handling lets remote attackers trigger a use-after-free
EUVD-2026-50206
GHSA-q67c-46w2-2p7h
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
VulDB
Exploit-DB