Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-42154 is a high-severity Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400) vulnerability in Prometheus Prometheus. 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 46% of CVEs by exploit likelihood; it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to AC-10 (Concurrent Session Control) and SC-5 (Denial-of-service Protection) — 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-2026-42154 is a memory allocation vulnerability in Prometheus, an open-source monitoring system and time series database. In versions prior to 3.5.3 and 3.11.3, the remote read endpoint (/api/v1/read) fails to validate the declared decoded length of a snappy-compressed request body before allocating heap memory. This flaw, linked to CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption) and CWE-789 (Memory Allocation with Excessive Size Value), 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).
An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability by sending a small, specially crafted snappy-compressed payload to the /api/v1/read endpoint. The invalid declared decoded length triggers a disproportionately large heap allocation per request. Under concurrent requests, this leads to rapid memory exhaustion, causing the Prometheus process to crash and potentially disrupting monitoring services.
Prometheus has addressed this issue in versions 3.5.3 and 3.11.3, with patches detailed in GitHub pull requests #18584 and #18585, release notes for those tags, and security advisory GHSA-8rm2-7qqf-34qm. Security practitioners should upgrade affected Prometheus instances to these patched versions and consider network restrictions on the remote read endpoint if immediate patching is not feasible.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-27091
Vulnerability Data
Prometheus is an open-source monitoring system and time series database. Prior to versions 3.5.3 and 3.11.3, the remote read endpoint (/api/v1/read) does not validate the declared decoded length in a snappy-compressed request body before allocating memory. An unauthenticated attacker can…
more
send a small payload that causes a huge heap allocation per request. Under concurrent load this can exhaust available memory and crash the Prometheus process. This issue has been patched in versions 3.5.3 and 3.11.3.
- 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
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Directly enforces a hard limit on concurrent sessions, structurally preventing unbounded resource allocation.
SC-5 directly limits the effects of resource-exhaustion events that constitute uncontrolled consumption.
SC-6 enforces explicit allocation limits on resources, structurally preventing the weakness from occurring.
Input validation directly rejects or bounds untrusted size values before any allocation occurs.
Imposes a limit on consecutive invalid attempts, preventing one specific class of unbounded resource consumption.
Process isolation confines resource consumption to separate domains, reducing blast radius without stopping the root flaw.
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.
Explicitly requires monitoring and maintaining resource capacity, directly addressing uncontrolled consumption to preserve availability.
Secure SDLC practices directly prevent coding flaws that trust unvalidated size values for allocations.
Continuous monitoring of computing resources can detect resource exhaustion but does not itself enforce allocation limits.
Resilience mechanisms such as avoiding single points of failure indirectly reduce impact of resource exhaustion.
Hardened configuration baselines can include resource quotas and limits that constrain consumption.
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.
Resource-utilization monitoring and alerting on bottlenecks or overloads limits the impact of denial-of-service or resource-exhaustion attacks.
Security testing in development can detect and block excessive allocation flaws before deployment.
By continuously monitoring utilization, stress-testing peak loads, and maintaining documented plans to scale or throttle resources, the control directly limits an attacker’s ability to drive a system into uncontrolled resource exhaustion.
Pre-agreed severity-based prioritization and resource allocation during incident triage reduce the likelihood that an attacker-induced resource exhaustion will overwhelm the organization before corrective action is taken.
Business-continuity plans that include resource-management controls reduce the likelihood that an attacker can trigger uncontrolled resource consumption by forcing the system into a degraded or fallback state.
Defining RTOs and capacity requirements for ICT services during business-impact analysis forces organizations to provision sufficient resources and throttling mechanisms, reducing the likelihood that an attacker can induce denial-of-service through uncontrolled resource consumption.
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