CVE-2026-88975: Http4s: Ember HTTP/2 buffers a frame's declared payload before checking SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE
An unauthenticated peer can make Ember’s HTTP/2 read loop hold 16 MiB of a single frame in memory on a connection where Ember advertised a 16 KiB limit. The declared length is readable from the frame’s first 9 bytes, but it is not compared against SETTINGS_MAX_FRAME_SIZE until the whole payload has been read into a contiguous buffer. That is 1024x amplification per connection, bounded by the protocol’s 24-bit length field rather than by any setting, and at the default maxConnections of 1024 it puts about 16 GiB of heap in reach.
References
- github.com/advisories/GHSA-gq9p-f254-h286
- github.com/http4s/http4s/commit/87cf334fa3f608ef7d3eb359e71e037ba3336d29
- github.com/http4s/http4s/releases/tag/v0.23.37
- github.com/http4s/http4s/releases/tag/v1.0.0-M48
- github.com/http4s/http4s/security/advisories/GHSA-gq9p-f254-h286
- nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-88975
Code Behaviors & Features
Detect and mitigate CVE-2026-88975 with GitLab Dependency Scanning
Secure your software supply chain by verifying that all open source dependencies used in your projects contain no disclosed vulnerabilities. Dependency Scanning using SBOM also detects vulnerabilities from proprietary advisories that this site does not include. Learn more about Dependency Scanning using SBOM →