CVE-2026-5038 PUBLISHED

multer vulnerable to Denial of Service via incomplete cleanup of aborted uploads

Assigner: openjs
Reserved: 27.03.2026 Published: 15.06.2026 Updated: 15.06.2026

Impact: multer versions 2.0.0-alpha.1 through 2.1.1 and 3.0.0-alpha.1 are vulnerable to a Denial of Service when using diskStorage. Aborted or malformed multipart uploads leave orphaned partial files on disk because the Readable.pipe() call does not propagate the stream destroy signal to the underlying fs.WriteStream. An attacker can exhaust disk space by triggering many aborted uploads, with no application bug required.

Patches: Users should upgrade to multer 2.2.0 (2.x line) or 3.0.0-alpha.2 (3.x prerelease). Both versions track in-flight write streams and clean them up on the abort path.

Workarounds: None.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
CVSS Score: 5.3

Product Status

Vendor multer
Product multer
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 2.0.0-alpha.1 to 2.2.0 (excl.)
  • Version 2.2.0 is unaffected
  • affected from 3.0.0-alpha.1 to 3.0.0-alpha.2 (excl.)
  • Version 3.0.0-alpha.2 is unaffected

Credits

  • yuki-matsuhashi remediation reviewer
  • HamdaanAliQuatil finder
  • fasrm finder
  • UlisesGascon remediation developer
  • bjohansebas remediation reviewer
  • 0xStraw-Hat finder
  • bhaswanthc finder
  • ByamB4 finder
  • sbouabid-sec finder
  • DavidCarliez finder
  • JebeenLee finder

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-459: Incomplete Cleanup CWE