CVE-2026-16028 PUBLISHED

Protocol::HTTP2 versions before 1.14 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via closed streams that stream_state never removes from the connection stream table

Assigner: CPANSec
Reserved: 17.07.2026 Published: 07.09.2026 Updated: 07.09.2026

Protocol::HTTP2 versions before 1.14 for Perl allow memory exhaustion via closed streams that stream_state never removes from the connection stream table.

When a stream reaches the CLOSED state, stream_state returns the concurrency slot and clears most of the stream's keys, but the entry itself stays in the connection stream table and nothing in the distribution removes it. Stream identifiers increase monotonically, so a peer can open and close streams on one connection indefinitely, each close leaving a residual entry that is retained for the life of the connection.

SETTINGS_MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS does not bound this. That setting caps how many streams are live at once and is enforced, while the growth is made of streams the cap has already released, so it accumulates with concurrency never exceeding one. The client keeps the same table and grows the same way against a hostile server.

Measured against a server built on this module, roughly 920 bytes are retained per closed stream for about 19 bytes on the wire, so 100,000 sequential streams on one connection grow server resident memory by about 88 MiB. The streams are ordinary requests that the application accepts and completes.

Product Status

Package Collection https://cpan.org/modules
Package Name Protocol-HTTP2
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 0 to 1.14 (excl.)

Workarounds

For deployments that are not able to upgrade to Protocol-HTTP2 1.14, close each connection after a fixed number of requests, which discards its stream table.

Solutions

Upgrade to Protocol-HTTP2 1.14 or later.

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime CWE