Headline
GHSA-44fp-w29j-9vj5: Multer vulnerable to Denial of Service via memory leaks from unclosed streams
Impact
Multer <2.0.0 is vulnerable to a resource exhaustion and memory leak issue due to improper stream handling. When the HTTP request stream emits an error, the internal busboy stream is not closed, violating Node.js stream safety guidance.
This leads to unclosed streams accumulating over time, consuming memory and file descriptors. Under sustained or repeated failure conditions, this can result in denial of service, requiring manual server restarts to recover. All users of Multer handling file uploads are potentially impacted.
Patches
Users should upgrade to 2.0.0
Workarounds
None
References
- https://github.com/expressjs/multer/pull/1120
- https://github.com/expressjs/multer/commit/2c8505f207d923dd8de13a9f93a4563e59933665
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.