A reachable-assertion flaw in the HPACK header-compression decoder of the HTTP/2 (h2/gRPC) stack in Apache bRPC (version < 1.18.0) on all platforms allows a remote attacker to crash the server process by sending a crafted sequence of HPACK headers, resulting in a denial of service.
Root Cause:
In src/brpc/details/hpack.cpp, IndexTable::Init sizes the dynamic-table ring buffer as num_headers = max_size / (32 + 2), i.e. it assumes a minimum table entry of 34 bytes (name >= 1 byte + value >= 1 byte + 32 bytes of overhead). However, RFC 7541 section 4.1 specifies that the minimum entry size is 33 bytes, because the value may be empty (name >= 1 byte + value == 0 + 32 bytes). For the default 4096-byte table this allocates only 120 slots (4096/34). Eviction in AddHeader is driven by byte usage (_max_size), not by slot count, so a peer can add 121 minimal 33-byte entries (121*33 = 3993 <= 4096) without triggering eviction. The 121st AddHeader then hits CHECK(!_header_queue.full()), which aborts the process.
Affected Scenarios:
Use a bRPC server that serves HTTP/2 or gRPC requests (e.g. via the h2 protocol) from an untrusted network. The malicious header block is processed during HPACK decoding of incoming requests without authentication.
How to Fix:
(Choose one of the following options)
1. Upgrade bRPC to version 1.18.0, which fixes this issue.
2. Apply this patch: https://github.com/apache/brpc/pull/3462
Note:
The fix sizes the dynamic table for the 33-byte minimum entry (max_size / (32 + 1)) and ensures at least one ring-buffer slot is kept when max_size is smaller than the minimum entry, so that initialization cannot fail on malloc(0).
References
Configurations
No configuration.
History
30 Oct 2026, 17:17
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
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| CVSS |
v2 : v3 : |
v2 : unknown
v3 : 7.5 |
26 Oct 2026, 20:10
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| Summary |
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21 Oct 2026, 12:17
| Type | Values Removed | Values Added |
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| New CVE |
Information
Published : 2026-10-21 12:17
Updated : 2026-10-30 17:17
NVD link : CVE-2026-78048
Mitre link : CVE-2026-78048
CVE.ORG link : CVE-2026-78048
JSON object : View
Products Affected
No product.
CWE
CWE-617
Reachable Assertion
