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Sydent vulnerable to denial of service attack via memory exhaustion

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Apr 15, 2021 in matrix-org/sydent • Updated Jan 30, 2023

Package

pip matrix-sydent (pip)

Affected versions

< 2.3.0

Patched versions

2.3.0

Description

Impact

Sydent does not limit the size of requests it receives from HTTP clients. A malicious user could send an HTTP request with a very large body, leading to disk space exhaustion and denial of service.

Sydent also does not limit response size for requests it makes to remote Matrix homeservers. A malicious homeserver could return a very large response, again leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service.

This affects any server which accepts registration requests from untrusted clients.

Patches

Patched by 89071a1, 0523511, f56eee3.

Workarounds

Request sizes can be limited in an HTTP reverse-proxy.

There are no known workarounds for the problem with overlarge responses.

For more information

If you have any questions or comments about this advisory, email us at [email protected].

References

@richvdh richvdh published to matrix-org/sydent Apr 15, 2021
Reviewed Apr 15, 2021
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Apr 15, 2021
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Apr 19, 2021
Last updated Jan 30, 2023

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

0.469%
(76th percentile)

CVE ID

CVE-2021-29430

GHSA ID

GHSA-wmg4-8cp2-hpg9

Source code

No known source code
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