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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.3

CVE-2026-45352 json

cpp-httplib DoS: Negative chunk-size in chunked Transfer-Encoding

published 2026-05-29 5 mo ago modified 2026-07-22 3 mo ago also EUVD-2026-33425

cvss
5.3
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.3%
EPSS 0.3% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 26%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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.

Patch / fix

  • yhirose cpp-httplib 0.43.4

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-45352 updated cvss 5.3

cpp-httplib: cpp-httplib: Denial of Service due to unbounded memory allocation via negative chunk-size

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
5 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.33% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 26% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/yhirose/cpp-httplib/security/advisories/GHSA-h6wq-j5mv-f3q8 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 5.3 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • yhirose cpp-httplib

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
  • CWE-1285 Improper Validation of Specified Index, Position, or Offset in Input
  • CWE-770 Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.