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Medium · 5.3 CVE-2026-45352 EUVD-2026-33425

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

Published May 29, 2026 · Updated Jun 2, 2026 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

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.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
yhirose cpp-httplib < 0.43.4 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 cpp-httplib No fix yet —
Debian 13 cpp-httplib No fix yet —
Debian 12 cpp-httplib No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 cpp-httplib No fix yet —
Ubuntu 25.10 cpp-httplib No fix yet —
Show 3 more (older releases, extended support, other products)
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu Pro 26.04 LTS cpp-httplib No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 24.04 LTS cpp-httplib No fix yet —
Ubuntu Pro 22.04 LTS cpp-httplib No fix yet —

References