CVE-2016-6581
Publication date 10 January 2017
Last updated 26 August 2025
Ubuntu priority
Cvss 3 Severity Score
Description
A HTTP/2 implementation built using any version of the Python HPACK library between v1.0.0 and v2.2.0 could be targeted for a denial of service attack, specifically a so-called "HPACK Bomb" attack. This attack occurs when an attacker inserts a header field that is exactly the size of the HPACK dynamic header table into the dynamic header table. The attacker can then send a header block that is simply repeated requests to expand that field in the dynamic table. This can lead to a gigantic compression ratio of 4,096 or better, meaning that 16kB of data can decompress to 64MB of data on the target machine.
Status
| Package | Ubuntu Release | Status |
|---|---|---|
| python-hpack | 26.04 LTS resolute |
Not affected
|
| 24.04 LTS noble |
Not affected
|
|
| 22.04 LTS jammy |
Not affected
|
|
| 20.04 LTS focal |
Not affected
|
|
| 18.04 LTS bionic |
Not affected
|
|
| 16.04 LTS xenial | Ignored end of standard support, was needed | |
| 14.04 LTS trusty | Not in release | |
Severity score breakdown
CVSS version: CVSS v3.0
Base score
7.5 · High
Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H