Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:LSummary
CVE-2023-50247 is a low-severity Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) vulnerability in Dena H2O. Its CVSS base score is 3.7 (Low).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Network Denial of Service (T1498); ranked in the top 45% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2023-55065
Vulnerability Data
h2o is an HTTP server with support for HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3. The QUIC stack (quicly), as used by H2O up to commit 43f86e5 (in version 2.3.0-beta and prior), is susceptible to a state exhaustion attack. When H2O is serving…
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HTTP/3, a remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability to progressively increase the memory retained by the QUIC stack. This can eventually cause H2O to abort due to memory exhaustion. The vulnerability has been resolved in commit d67e81d03be12a9d53dc8271af6530f40164cd35. HTTP/1 and HTTP/2 are not affected by this vulnerability as they do not use QUIC. Administrators looking to mitigate this issue without upgrading can disable HTTP/3 support.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
V15.4.4
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
This control implements explicit throttling on session allocation, addressing the weakness of allocating resources without limits.
Plan testing exercises resource allocation limits and throttling during simulated failures, directly addressing weaknesses that allow unbounded resource use.
Contingency plan updates ensure recovery strategies address unbounded resource allocation, making it harder for attackers to exploit lack of throttling to cause prolonged outages.
Provides continuity when unbounded resource allocation at the primary site leads to exhaustion and downtime.
Alternate services allow operations to continue when primary allocation of resources lacks limits or throttling.
Explicit planning of security-related actions requires defining limits, windows, and resource allocations, making allocation without throttling far less likely.
Measures of performance include tracking allocation behavior and throttling effectiveness, reducing the window for resource exhaustion attacks.
Imposes an inactivity-based limit on network resource allocation, throttling the number of concurrently held connections.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Monitoring capacity and taking action to maintain availability directly reduces unchecked resource allocation.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Baseline comparison of CPU, memory and bandwidth usage helps surface uncontrolled resource allocations before they cause service degradation.
Capacity projections and elasticity measures ensure that allocation requests are bounded and can be throttled, reducing the window in which an attacker can force unbounded resource reservations.
Defining retention periods and deletion schedules for backup copies prevents indefinite accumulation of data on storage media without corresponding resource-management controls.
Architectural redundancy and automatic failover limit the impact of an attacker who forces excessive allocations, because spare capacity can absorb the load until the primary instance recovers.
Documented incident response procedures that include activation of continuity plans and controlled recovery help ensure that resource consumption triggered by an incident is bounded and managed rather than left unbounded.
Mandating tested continuity procedures that preserve or replace resource-limiting controls prevents an attacker from exploiting the absence of throttling mechanisms during an outage.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Oracle Linux 8 (2 rules)
- V-248552 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
- V-248553 OL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
Oracle Linux 9 (2 rules)
- V-271710 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic are terminated after 10 minutes of becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
- V-271709 OL 9 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770
RHEL 8 (1 rule)
- V-230244 RHEL 8 must be configured so that all network connections associated with SSH traffic terminate after becoming unresponsive. prevents CWE-770