Bug 2483427 (CVE-2026-45352)

Summary: CVE-2026-45352 cpp-httplib: cpp-httplib: Denial of Service due to unbounded memory allocation via negative chunk-size
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedKeywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in cpp-httplib, a C++ HTTP/HTTPS library. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted HTTP request that includes a negative chunk-size in the chunked Transfer-Encoding. This incorrect parsing leads to unbounded memory allocation, causing the application to crash. This results in a Denial of Service (DoS) for the affected system.
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Bug Depends On: 2483735, 2483736    
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-05-29 20:01:21 UTC
cpp-httplib is a C++11 single-file header-only cross platform HTTP/HTTPS library. Prior to 0.43.4, negative chunk-size in chunked Transfer-Encoding causes unbounded memory allocation and process crash. The ChunkedDecoder::read_payload function in cpp-httplib (httplib.h) parses the chunk-size field of HTTP chunked transfer encoding using std::strtoul(). Per the C standard (§7.22.1.4), strtoul silently accepts a leading minus sign, performing unsigned wrap-around: strtoul("-2", …, 16) returns ULONG_MAX − 1 (0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFE). The library's only guard (line 12833) rejects ULONG_MAX (the result of "-1"), but any other negative value such as "-2" passes validation. The resulting near-maximum value is stored in chunk_remaining and controls how many bytes the server's read loop consumes from the network. This vulnerability is fixed in 0.43.4.