Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in ws - #VU166167
Published: November 13, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU166167
CSH Severity: Medium
CVSS v4: 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]
CVE-ID: N/A
CWE-ID: CWE-770
Exploitation vector: Remote access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to cause a denial of service through memory exhaustion and process termination.
The vulnerability exists due to unbounded resource allocation in ws automatic pong handling when responding to ping frames from a peer that stops reading responses. A remote attacker can flood a connection with ping frames while stopping reads to force buffered pong responses to exhaust memory.
Affected software
ws
Remediation
Install security update from vendor's website.
ws - addressed in versions 5.2.8, 6.2.7, 7.5.14, 8.23.0