CVE-2026-48045: python-zeroconf: Unbounded TC-deferred queue allows LAN-local memory exhaustion via spoofed-source flood
AsyncListener.handle_query_or_defer retained every truncated (TC-bit) incoming query in self._deferred[addr] and armed a per-addr timer in self._timers[addr] that flushed the reassembled query within ~500 ms (RFC 6762 §18.5). Neither the per-addr list nor the number of distinct addr keys was capped, and the dedup check (for incoming in reversed(deferred): if incoming.data == msg.data) ran O(N) over the per-addr list on every arrival.
Any unauthenticated host on the local link (UDP/5353, 224.0.0.251 / ff02::fb) can stream byte-distinct TC-flagged mDNS queries — each up to _MAX_MSG_ABSOLUTE = 8966 bytes, with DNSIncoming retaining the raw data buffer plus parsed-record state. Trivially spoofed source IPs multiply the effect across _deferred / _timers, and the O(N) data compare burns CPU quadratically as each per-addr queue grows. On memory-constrained deployments (Home Assistant on Raspberry-Pi-class hardware is the canonical victim) sustained traffic OOM-kills the process; under lighter load, the per-arrival scan and event-loop scheduler starvation break unrelated zeroconf consumers (discovery, registration, ServiceBrowser callbacks).
References
- github.com/advisories/GHSA-9663-mqmp-p9mm
- github.com/python-zeroconf/python-zeroconf/commit/b22c8ff19c66c68907d220a4823c0950f4fa93f7
- github.com/python-zeroconf/python-zeroconf/pull/1751
- github.com/python-zeroconf/python-zeroconf/security/advisories/GHSA-9663-mqmp-p9mm
- nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-48045
Code Behaviors & Features
Detect and mitigate CVE-2026-48045 with GitLab Dependency Scanning
Secure your software supply chain by verifying that all open source dependencies used in your projects contain no disclosed vulnerabilities. Learn more about Dependency Scanning →