Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-12537

DoS in Openwebui Open Webui 0.3.32

Public PoCDoS
Published
20 March 2025
Modified
04 April 2025
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0089 56th percentile
Risk Priority 62 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2024-12537 is a high-severity Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling (CWE-770) vulnerability in Openwebui Open Webui. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Network Denial of Service (T1498); ranked in the top 44% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog; a public proof-of-concept is referenced.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-10 (Concurrent Session Control) and SC-6 (Resource Availability) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

Deeper analysis AI-assisted summary

Synthesised by an AI model from the NVD description and linked references — a reading aid, not an authoritative source.

CVE-2024-12537 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in version 0.3.32 of open-webui/open-webui, stemming from the absence of authentication on the `api/v1/utils/code/format` endpoint (CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling). This allows unauthenticated attackers to send POST requests containing an excessively high volume of content, exhausting server resources and rendering it completely unresponsive. The issue carries a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H), highlighting high availability impact with no confidentiality or integrity effects.

Any unauthenticated attacker with network access can exploit the vulnerability by crafting and sending a POST request with oversized content to the exposed endpoint. Successful exploitation leads to severe performance degradation, server unresponsiveness, or full service interruptions, denying access to legitimate users without requiring privileges, user interaction, or special conditions.

Details on mitigation, including any patches or workarounds, are available in the primary advisory published on Huntr at https://huntr.com/bounties/edabd06c-acc0-428c-a481-271f333755bc. The vulnerability was publicly disclosed on 2025-03-20.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In version 0.3.32 of open-webui/open-webui, the absence of authentication mechanisms allows any unauthenticated attacker to access the `api/v1/utils/code/format` endpoint. If a malicious actor sends a POST request with an excessively high volume of content, the server could become completely unresponsive.…

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This could lead to severe performance issues, causing the server to become unresponsive or experience significant degradation, ultimately resulting in service interruptions for legitimate users.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1498 Network Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Network Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of targeted resources to users.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
T1499.003 Application Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may target resource intensive features of applications to cause a denial of service (DoS), denying availability to those applications.
T1498.001 Direct Network Flood Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by directly sending a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
T1498.002 Reflection Amplification Impact
Adversaries may attempt to cause a denial of service (DoS) by reflecting a high-volume of network traffic to a target.
T1499.001 OS Exhaustion Flood Impact
Adversaries may launch a denial of service (DoS) attack targeting an endpoint's operating system (OS).
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2024-7983Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-7036Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-12534Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-30256Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-7990Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-7043Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-7046Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-7035Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2026-56400Same product: Openwebui Open Webui
CVE-2024-8017Same product: Openwebui Open Webui

Affected Assets

openwebui
open webui
0.3.32

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 5 hardening rules · 3 OS baselines
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)
  • V15.4.4

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Directly enforces a hard limit on concurrent sessions, structurally preventing unbounded resource allocation.

Requires explicit allocation of resources by priority or quota, directly stopping unlimited allocation.

Imposes a limit on consecutive invalid attempts, preventing one specific class of unbounded resource consumption.

Reduces impact of resulting DoS events without preventing the underlying lack of allocation limits.

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.

PR.IR-04 mostly match
degrades

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.

finds

Baseline comparison of CPU, memory and bandwidth usage helps surface uncontrolled resource allocations before they cause service degradation.

prevents

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.

mitigates

Defining retention periods and deletion schedules for backup copies prevents indefinite accumulation of data on storage media without corresponding resource-management controls.

mitigates

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.

none

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.

mitigates

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

References