Description
In OpenStack Swift through 2.38.0, the proxy server Accept header parser contains a regular expression vulnerable to catastrophic backtracking (ReDoS). The "qdtext" pattern (?:[^"]|\\.)* allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to send a crafted Accept header that causes exponential CPU consumption in the proxy worker. A payload of 32 backslash-character pairs exceeds 30 seconds of CPU time. No authentication is required. Repeated requests can exhaust all proxy worker threads, resulting in a complete denial of service.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected | Fixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStack | Swift | 1.9.1 – < 2.35.4, 2.36.0 – < 2.36.3, 2.37.0 – < 2.37.3, 2.38.0 | 2.35.4 |
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.
Debian
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 14 | swift | 2.37.1-6 | — |
| Debian 13 | swift | No fix yet | — |
| Debian 12 | swift | 2.30.1-0+deb12u2 | — |
Ubuntu
Security tracker ↗| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 26.10 | swift | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | swift | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 LTS | swift | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 22.04 LTS | swift | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 20.04 LTS | swift | No fix yet | — |
Show 2 more (older releases, extended support, other products)Fewer releases
| Release | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | swift | No fix yet | — |
| Ubuntu 16.04 LTS | swift | No fix yet | — |
References
- https://launchpad.net/bugs/2158771 issue-tracking
- https://openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/07/28/27 vendor-advisory mailing-list
- https://security.openstack.org/ossa/OSSA-2026-031.html vendor-advisory