CVE-2026-43970 (GCVE-0-2026-43970)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-05-13 18:43 – Updated: 2026-05-15 04:33
VLAI
EPSS
VEX
Title
Decompression Bomb in cow_spdy:inflate/2 Allows Memory Exhaustion via Crafted SPDY Frame
Summary
Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification) vulnerability in ninenines cowlib allows unauthenticated remote denial of service via memory exhaustion.
cow_spdy:inflate/2 in cowlib passes peer-supplied compressed bytes directly to zlib:inflate/2 with no output size bound. The SPDY header compression dictionary (?ZDICT) is public, and zlib compresses long runs of repeated bytes at roughly 1024:1, so a few kilobytes of SPDY frame payload can decompress to gigabytes on the BEAM heap, OOM-killing the node. A single unauthenticated SPDY frame is sufficient to trigger the condition. The parsers for syn_stream, syn_reply, and headers frame types are all affected via cow_spdy:parse_headers/2.
This issue affects cowlib from 0.1.0 before 2.16.1.
Severity
SSVC
Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical Impact: partial
CISA Coordinator · CISA-ADP (v2.0.3)
Decision recorded 2026-05-14 12:38 UTC
CWE
- CWE-409 - Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)
Assigner
References
3 references
| URL | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-43970.html | relatedthird-party-advisory |
| https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-43970 | related |
| https://github.com/ninenines/cowlib/commit/16aad3… | patch |
Impacted products
2 products
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"lang": "en",
"supportingMedia": [
{
"base64": false,
"type": "text/html",
"value": "\u003cp\u003eThe application must use \u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy:parse/2\u003c/tt\u003e to parse SPDY frames from an untrusted peer. cowboy itself does not use \u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy\u003c/tt\u003e; only direct callers of the \u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy\u003c/tt\u003e API are affected.\u003c/p\u003e"
}
],
"value": "The application must use cow_spdy:parse/2 to parse SPDY frames from an untrusted peer. cowboy itself does not use cow_spdy; only direct callers of the cow_spdy API are affected."
}
],
"cpeApplicability": [
{
"nodes": [
{
"cpeMatch": [
{
"criteria": "cpe:2.3:a:ninenines:cowlib:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
"versionEndExcluding": "2.16.1",
"versionStartIncluding": "0.1.0",
"vulnerable": true
}
],
"negate": false,
"operator": "OR"
}
]
}
],
"credits": [
{
"lang": "en",
"type": "finder",
"value": "Peter Ullrich"
},
{
"lang": "en",
"type": "remediation developer",
"value": "Lo\u00efc Hoguin"
}
],
"descriptions": [
{
"lang": "en",
"supportingMedia": [
{
"base64": false,
"type": "text/html",
"value": "\u003cp\u003eImproper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification) vulnerability in ninenines cowlib allows unauthenticated remote denial of service via memory exhaustion.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy:inflate/2\u003c/tt\u003e in cowlib passes peer-supplied compressed bytes directly to \u003ctt\u003ezlib:inflate/2\u003c/tt\u003e with no output size bound. The SPDY header compression dictionary (\u003ctt\u003e?ZDICT\u003c/tt\u003e) is public, and zlib compresses long runs of repeated bytes at roughly 1024:1, so a few kilobytes of SPDY frame payload can decompress to gigabytes on the BEAM heap, OOM-killing the node. A single unauthenticated SPDY frame is sufficient to trigger the condition. The parsers for \u003ctt\u003esyn_stream\u003c/tt\u003e, \u003ctt\u003esyn_reply\u003c/tt\u003e, and \u003ctt\u003eheaders\u003c/tt\u003e frame types are all affected via \u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy:parse_headers/2\u003c/tt\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis issue affects cowlib from 0.1.0 before 2.16.1.\u003c/p\u003e"
}
],
"value": "Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification) vulnerability in ninenines cowlib allows unauthenticated remote denial of service via memory exhaustion.\n\ncow_spdy:inflate/2 in cowlib passes peer-supplied compressed bytes directly to zlib:inflate/2 with no output size bound. The SPDY header compression dictionary (?ZDICT) is public, and zlib compresses long runs of repeated bytes at roughly 1024:1, so a few kilobytes of SPDY frame payload can decompress to gigabytes on the BEAM heap, OOM-killing the node. A single unauthenticated SPDY frame is sufficient to trigger the condition. The parsers for syn_stream, syn_reply, and headers frame types are all affected via cow_spdy:parse_headers/2.\n\nThis issue affects cowlib from 0.1.0 before 2.16.1."
}
],
"impacts": [
{
"capecId": "CAPEC-130",
"descriptions": [
{
"lang": "en",
"value": "CAPEC-130 Excessive Allocation"
}
]
}
],
"metrics": [
{
"cvssV4_0": {
"attackComplexity": "LOW",
"attackRequirements": "PRESENT",
"attackVector": "NETWORK",
"baseScore": 8.2,
"baseSeverity": "HIGH",
"privilegesRequired": "NONE",
"subAvailabilityImpact": "NONE",
"subConfidentialityImpact": "NONE",
"subIntegrityImpact": "NONE",
"userInteraction": "NONE",
"vectorString": "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",
"version": "4.0",
"vulnAvailabilityImpact": "HIGH",
"vulnConfidentialityImpact": "NONE",
"vulnIntegrityImpact": "NONE"
},
"format": "CVSS",
"scenarios": [
{
"lang": "en",
"value": "GENERAL"
}
]
}
],
"problemTypes": [
{
"descriptions": [
{
"cweId": "CWE-409",
"description": "CWE-409 Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)",
"lang": "en",
"type": "CWE"
}
]
}
],
"providerMetadata": {
"dateUpdated": "2026-05-15T04:33:30.898Z",
"orgId": "6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db",
"shortName": "EEF"
},
"references": [
{
"tags": [
"related",
"third-party-advisory"
],
"url": "https://cna.erlef.org/cves/CVE-2026-43970.html"
},
{
"tags": [
"related"
],
"url": "https://osv.dev/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-43970"
},
{
"tags": [
"patch"
],
"url": "https://github.com/ninenines/cowlib/commit/16aad3fb9f81f5cda4d1706ff0c54237c619c282"
}
],
"solutions": [
{
"lang": "en",
"supportingMedia": [
{
"base64": false,
"type": "text/html",
"value": "\u003cp\u003eUpgrade to cowlib 2.16.1 or later, in which the \u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy\u003c/tt\u003e module has been removed entirely. No patched version of \u003ctt\u003ecow_spdy\u003c/tt\u003e will be provided. Migrate away from SPDY, which has been deprecated since 2015 in favour of HTTP/2.\u003c/p\u003e"
}
],
"value": "Upgrade to cowlib 2.16.1 or later, in which the cow_spdy module has been removed entirely. No patched version of cow_spdy will be provided. Migrate away from SPDY, which has been deprecated since 2015 in favour of HTTP/2."
}
],
"source": {
"discovery": "EXTERNAL"
},
"title": "Decompression Bomb in cow_spdy:inflate/2 Allows Memory Exhaustion via Crafted SPDY Frame",
"x_generator": {
"engine": "cvelib 1.8.0"
}
}
},
"cveMetadata": {
"assignerOrgId": "6b3ad84c-e1a6-4bf7-a703-f496b71e49db",
"assignerShortName": "EEF",
"cveId": "CVE-2026-43970",
"datePublished": "2026-05-13T18:43:11.640Z",
"dateReserved": "2026-05-04T18:23:25.574Z",
"dateUpdated": "2026-05-15T04:33:30.898Z",
"state": "PUBLISHED"
},
"dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
"dataVersion": "5.2"
}
}
}
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Drag nodes to arrange them. Double-click a related vulnerability to open it, or a source to visit its link. The Physics button on the left tunes the layout and the simulation; the legend at the bottom left hides or shows nodes by kind and by sighting type.
Experimental. This forecast is provided for visualization only and may change without notice. Do not use it for operational decisions.
Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
Vulnerability timeline
Sightings and recorded dates, grouped by day · UTC
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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the
vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base
model, served locally by ML-Gateway.
They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
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Related by attack behaviour
Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.