Input validation error in Mongoose - CVE-2023-34188
Published: February 28, 2025 / Updated: June 23, 2025
Vulnerability identifier: #VU111839
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4.0: 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/E:U/U:Green
CVE-ID: CVE-2023-34188
CWE-ID: CWE-20
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vendor: Cesanta Software Ltd.
Affected software:
Mongoose
Mongoose
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a remote non-authenticated attacker to perform a denial of service (DoS) attack.
The HTTP server in Mongoose before 7.10 accepts requests containing negative Content-Length headers. By sending a single attack payload over TCP, an attacker can cause an infinite loop in which the server continuously reparses that payload, and does not respond to any other requests.
How to mitigate CVE-2023-34188
Install update from vendor's website.
Sources
- https://blog.narfindustries.com/blog/narf-discovers-critical-vulnerabilities-in-cesanta-mongoose-http-server
- https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/commit/4663090a8fb036146dfe77718cff612b0101cb0f
- https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/compare/7.9...7.10
- https://github.com/cesanta/mongoose/pull/2197
- https://security.netapp.com/advisory/ntap-20250228-0001/