CVE-2026-12523

Resource exhaustion in quiche HTTP/3 and QPACK layers

Published Jul 14, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 7.5 High EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Summary



Cloudflare quiche's HTTP/3 layer was discovered to be vulnerable to resource exhaustion (i.e., memory) by means of specially crafted HTTP/3 frames.




Impact



HTTP/3 defines multiple frame types to support HTTP message exchanges and connection management. Each frame has a length and a payload whose length depends on the frame type. quiche was found to be vulnerable when parsing some frame types to pre-allocating memory based on the declared length. An attacker would not need to send the number of declared bytes to trigger this issue.



In addition, quiche was found to not apply QPACK decompression limits correctly. This could allow an attacker to send specially crafted HEADERS frames that would cause more memory commitment than otherwise advertised by MAX_FIELD_SECTION_SIZE (configured by set_max_field_section_size()).






Mitigation:

*

Users are requested to upgrade to quiche 0.29.3 which is the earliest version containing the fix for this issue.









Credits: Disclosed responsibly by Sébastien Féry

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

No advisories available
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-400
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Cloudflare
Cloudflare quiche
Vendors & Products Cloudflare
Cloudflare quiche
Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Summary Cloudflare quiche's HTTP/3 layer was discovered to be vulnerable to resource exhaustion (i.e., memory) by means of specially crafted HTTP/3 frames. Impact HTTP/3 defines multiple frame types to support HTTP message exchanges and connection management. Each frame has a length and a payload whose length depends on the frame type. quiche was found to be vulnerable when parsing some frame types to pre-allocating memory based on the declared length. An attacker would not need to send the number of declared bytes to trigger this issue. In addition, quiche was found to not apply QPACK decompression limits correctly. This could allow an attacker to send specially crafted HEADERS frames that would cause more memory commitment than otherwise advertised by MAX_FIELD_SECTION_SIZE (configured by set_max_field_section_size()). Mitigation: * Users are requested to upgrade to quiche 0.29.3 which is the earliest version containing the fix for this issue. Credits: Disclosed responsibly by Sébastien Féry
Title Resource exhaustion in quiche HTTP/3 and QPACK layers
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 7.5, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
cloudflare
Published
Updated
Jul 15, 2026, 5:47 PM
Reserved
Jun 17, 2026, 1:35 PM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Jul 14, 2026, 4:16 PM
Modified
Oct 24, 2026, 9:10 PM