Cyber Resilience

CVE-2024-52804

HighDDoS

Published: 22 November 2024

Published
22 November 2024
Modified
03 November 2025
KEV Added
Patch
CVSS Score v3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0016 36.8th percentile
Risk Priority 15 60% EPSS · 20% KEV · 20% CVSS

Summary

CVE-2024-52804 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Tornadoweb Tornado. Its CVSS base score is 7.5 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 36.8th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability details

Tornado is a Python web framework and asynchronous networking library. The algorithm used for parsing HTTP cookies in Tornado versions prior to 6.4.2 sometimes has quadratic complexity, leading to excessive CPU consumption when parsing maliciously-crafted cookie headers. This parsing occurs…

more

in the event loop thread and may block the processing of other requests. Version 6.4.2 fixes the issue.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

The CVE describes a remote, unauthenticated DoS vulnerability in Tornado's HTTP cookie parsing with quadratic complexity, causing excessive CPU usage and blocking the event loop, which exploits the application to deny service (T1499.004: Application or System Exploitation).

MITRE ATLAS TechniquesAI

MITRE ATLAS techniques

AML.T0048: External Harms

Affected Assets

tornadoweb
tornado
≤ 6.4.2

Mitigating Controls

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.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Limiting concurrent sessions directly prevents uncontrolled resource consumption by capping the number of active sessions per user or account.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Contingency plan testing includes resource exhaustion scenarios to verify recovery, making it harder for attackers to sustain exploits that cause uncontrolled consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Updated contingency plans include current procedures to detect, contain, and recover from resource exhaustion, limiting an attacker's ability to sustain impact from uncontrolled consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Alternate site allows resumption of operations if resource exhaustion at the primary site is exploited to cause unavailability.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Alternate telecommunications services enable resumption of essential functions when primary services become unavailable due to uncontrolled resource consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Planning and coordination of security activities (scans, tests, maintenance) directly imposes scheduling and throttling that prevents those activities from producing uncontrolled resource consumption.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Performance metrics and monitoring inherently track resource consumption patterns, making uncontrolled consumption easier to detect and mitigate.

addresses: CWE-400 CWE-770

Terminating idle connections bounds resource consumption that would otherwise allow uncontrolled accumulation of open sessions.

References