Description
Issue summary: Remote peer may exhaust heap memory of the QUIC server or client by flooding it with packets containing PATH_CHALLENGE frames.
Impact summary: A malicious remote peer can cause an unbounded memory allocation which can lead to an abnormal termination of the application acting as a QUIC client or server and a Denial of Service.
A remote peer may exhaust heap memory by flooding the local QUIC stack with PATH_CHALLENGE frames. The local QUIC stack allocates a PATH_RESPONSE frame for every PATH_CHALLENGE it receives. The allocated PATH_RESPONSE frame gets freed only when the remote peer acknowledges reception of the PATH_RESPONSE frame which will not be done by a malicious peer.
The FIPS modules in 4.0, 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, and 3.0 are not affected by this issue. The QUIC stack is outside of OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.
Metrics
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HWeakness enumeration
Affected software
No affected versions have been published.
Timeline
- Published
- Jun 9, 2026
- Last modified
- Jul 23, 2026
- NVD status
- Analyzed