Starlet versions before 0.33 for Perl allow a request declaring a large Content-Length to kill a worker by exhausting memory
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 0.33
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
Starlet, a Perl web server, is affected before version 0.33. A remote attacker can send a request declaring a very large Content-Length, causing the worker process to run out of memory and crash, which forces repeated worker restarts and can disrupt the service.
Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.
Read the original description
Starlet versions before 0.33 for Perl allow a request declaring a large Content-Length to kill a worker by exhausting memory. The request body is read in a loop that asks sysread for all of the remaining declared length at once. Perl grows the read buffer to that size before any data arrives, so a length larger than available memory makes the worker exit with an uncatchable out of memory error before the application is called. A remote attacker can force a worker restart with each request of a few bytes.
Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- Starlet
fixed in 0.33