Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessReach vLLM multimodal API endpoint
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DeliverySubmit request with attacker-controlled image/audio URL
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ExploitvLLM fetches URL via aiohttp
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Executionr.read() buffers unbounded response into memory
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ImpactMemory exhaustion crashes inference server
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 vLLM instance is serving a multimodal model (one that processes image or audio inputs) so that the AsyncMediaIO code path is reachable. The CVSS vector PR:N confirms no authentication credential is needed at the application layer; any client that can reach the API endpoint can trigger the fetch. The attacker must also control or access an HTTP server capable of streaming a large response - any publicly accessible large file (e.g., a cloud storage bucket) suffices. Exploitation is limited by: (1) deployments that enforce domain allowlisting for media URLs, which is now documented in vLLM's security guide, (2) network-isolated deployments where untrusted clients cannot reach the API port, and (3) text-only deployments where multimodal input processing is inactive. vLLM's own security documentation explicitly warns that the server is not hardened for direct public exposure, meaning well-configured deployments with access controls have materially reduced exposure. |
| Impact | The CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) accurately characterizes the exploitability: the attack requires no authentication, no special timing, and no user interaction beyond submitting a well-formed API request. Attack complexity is genuinely low because any HTTP server hosting a large file can serve as the weaponized endpoint. The availability impact is high because memory exhaustion can kill the vLLM process or degrade the host. No EPSS score was provided in the input data, so probability-based exploitation likelihood cannot be quantified. The vulnerability is not listed in CISA KEV and no weaponized exploit code is confirmed; a researcher page exists at s00me00ne.com referencing the CVE but its content and reliability have not been independently verified. Real-world risk is tempered by the fact that vLLM's own security documentation recommends network isolation and access control - deployments following these guidance points significantly reduce exposure. Against publicly exposed or inadequately restricted vLLM endpoints serving multimodal models, however, this is a straightforward, reliable denial-of-service primitive. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | An attacker with access to the vLLM API endpoint submits a chat completion request containing an image or audio URL that resolves to an HTTP server hosting a multi-gigabyte file. The vLLM server fetches the URL via aiohttp and calls r.read() without any size limit, causing it to buffer the entire response body into process memory. If repeated or sufficiently large, this exhausts available RAM on the inference host, crashing the vLLM process and denying service to all legitimate users. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Aug 28, 2026
Memory exhaustion via unbounded URL fetch in vLLM up to 0.17.0 allows remote unauthenticated attackers to crash the inference server by supplying a multimodal API request pointing to an arbitrarily large file. The AsyncMediaIO.fetch_audio and AsyncMediaIO.fetch_image functions in multimodal/inputs.py use aiohttp to retrieve user-controlled URLs but call r.read() with no response-size cap, meaning the server will buffer the entire remote payload into process memory. No public exploit confirmation or CISA KEV listing exists at time of analysis; however, the attack surface is trivially reachable against any vLLM deployment accepting multimodal API requests without network-layer restrictions.
RemediationAI
The primary fix is to upgrade vLLM beyond 0.17.0 once a patched release incorporating GitHub PR #36506 is available; the exact released fix version is not independently confirmed from the provided data, so monitor the vLLM GitHub releases page. As an immediate compensating control, configure vLLM's media URL domain allowlist to restrict which external domains the server will fetch from - the updated security documentation in PR #36506 explicitly describes this control and notes it mitigates both SSRF and unbounded resource consumption. Additionally, enforce network-layer restrictions so that only trusted clients can submit multimodal API requests, consistent with vLLM's own deployment recommendations around network isolation and access control. If multimodal input is not required for a given deployment, disabling the multimodal feature entirely eliminates the attack surface with no functional trade-off for text-only use cases.
Affected VersionsENISA
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Technical ContextAI · show details
vLLM is an open-source high-throughput LLM inference and serving engine that supports multimodal inputs including images and audio. The vulnerable code path resides in vllm/multimodal/inputs.py within the AsyncMediaIO class. When processing requests that include media URLs, these async functions retrieve the remote content via the aiohttp HTTP client library and invoke r.read() - an unbounded memory read - on the response object. CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) describes this class of flaw precisely: the program does not constrain an externally-controlled resource (HTTP response body size) before allocating memory for it. The fix, documented in GitHub PR #36506, includes adding domain allowlisting guidance as a compensating control, with the security documentation explicitly calling out both SSRF and resource exhaustion as consequences of unrestricted media URL fetching. CPE data from NVD is listed as n/a, so exact CPE strings are not available from the provided sources.
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Network fetch triggered by unauthenticated API request; no confidentiality or integrity impact, only availability via memory exhaustion.
Primary rating from Vendor (mitre).
CVSS VectorVendor: mitre
Lifecycle Timeline
3DescriptionCVE.org
vLLM up to and including 0.17.0 allows remote attackers to cause a Denial of Service via memory exhaustion. The AsyncMediaIO.fetch_audio and AsyncMediaIO.fetch_image functions in multimodal/inputs.py fetch user-supplied media URLs using aiohttp and call r.read() without enforcing a maximum response size, allowing an attacker to exhaust server memory by providing a URL to an arbitrarily large file.
Executive ViewAI
vLLM inference servers (versions ≤0.17.0) are vulnerable to remote denial-of-service attacks requiring no authentication; attackers can crash inference services by sending multimodal API requests with pointers to large files that the server loads entirely into memory without bounds. Organizations running vLLM for LLM hosting face complete service unavailability with no user interaction or credentials required.
No vendor-released patch identified at time of analysis. Interim mitigations: (1) Restrict multimodal API endpoint access to internal/trusted networks only; (2) Enforce request body size limits at application and reverse-proxy layers; (3) Implement API rate limiting and per-IP connection throttling; (4) Enable detailed logging and alerting for abnormal memory/CPU spikes on vLLM processes; (5) Maintain backup inference capacity or failover endpoints independent of affected vLLM instances.
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
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EUVD-2026-67775
GHSA-63mw-rppr-f2pf
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Vulnrichment
Exploit-DB