HTTP/2 blocked-send deadlines reset on every WINDOW_UPDATE, letting a trickle pin stream processes indefinitely in Bandit

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in mtrudel bandit allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to pin HTTP/2 stream processes indefinitely via a trickle of small WINDOW_UPDATE frames. A stream whose response outruns the connection or stream send window blocks until the peer grants more window, and each block carries a 15 second deadline. Both deadlines restart whenever the peer makes partial progress. Bandit.HTTP2.Connection.finish_data/5 re-queues a partially advanced send in pending_sends with a fresh expires_at, so every WINDOW_UPDATE on stream 0, and every SETTINGS frame, resets the clock. Bandit.HTTP2.Stream.send_data/3 recurses on each stream WINDOW_UPDATE and re-arms a fresh after read_timeout. A peer that grants a few bytes every few seconds keeps the blocked stream process, its Plug state and any resource it holds mid-response alive for as long as it keeps dripping, and repeats this across streams and connections to exhaust server processes and memory. The two paths are independent. The stream-level block is reached on its own by widening the connection window with a large WINDOW_UPDATE on stream 0 and shrinking the per-stream window with a small SETTINGS_INITIAL_WINDOW_SIZE, so closing only the connection-level path leaves it exploitable. This issue affects bandit: from 1.4.0 before 1.13.0.

Source published

14 Oct 2026 16:54:46 UTC

Source modified

16 Oct 2026 20:07:01 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

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CVSS 4.0 · 8.7 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N