Unscored severity · published Oct 21, 2026
CVE-2026-78048
Apache bRPC: Remote Denial of Service via Out-of-Bounds Dynamic Table Sizing in HPACK Decoder
New
–
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
A reachable-assertion flaw in the HPACK header-compression decoder of the HTTP/2 (h2/gRPC) stack in Apache bRPC (version < 1.18.0) on all platforms allows a remote attacker to crash the server process by sending a crafted sequence of HPACK headers, resulting in a denial of service. Root Cause: In src/brpc/details/hpack.cpp, IndexTable::Init sizes the dynamic-table ring buffer as num_headers = max_size / (32 + 2), i.e. it assumes a minimum table entry of 34 bytes (name >= 1 byte + value >= 1 byte + 32 bytes of overhead). However, RFC 7541 section 4.1 specifies that the minimum entry size is 33 bytes, because the value may be empty (name >= 1 byte + value == 0 + 32 bytes). For the default 4096-byte table this allocates only 120 slots (4096/34). Eviction in AddHeader is driven by byte usage (_max_size), not by slot count, so a peer can add 121 minimal 33-byte entries (121*33 = 3993 <= 4096) without triggering eviction. The 121st AddHeader then hits CHECK(!_header_queue.full()), which aborts the process. Affected Scenarios: Use a bRPC server that serves HTTP/2 or gRPC requests (e.g. via the h2 protocol) from an untrusted network. The malicious header block is processed during HPACK decoding of incoming requests without authentication. How to Fix: (Choose one of the following options)  1. Upgrade bRPC to version 1.18.0, which fixes this issue. 2. Apply this patch: https://github.com/apache/brpc/pull/3462 Note: The fix sizes the dynamic table for the 33-byte minimum entry (max_size / (32 + 1)) and ensures at least one ring-buffer slot is kept when max_size is smaller than the minimum entry, so that initialization cannot fail on malloc(0).
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 15% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
AB
Apache bRPC · Apache Software Foundation
before 1.18.0 · source: vendor
Affected product
AB
Apache bRPC
Apache Software Foundation
More from Apache bRPC
7.5
CVE-2026-82230
Apache bRPC: Stack Exhaustion via Unbounded Recursion in mcpack2pb Parser
7.5
CVE-2026-74757
Apache bRPC: Uncontrolled Memory Allocation via Malicious mcpack Array Item Count
7.5
CVE-2026-56386
Apache bRPC: Integer Underflow and Out-of-Bounds Read in HTTP/2 DATA Frame Parser
6.5
CVE-2026-90484
Apache bRPC: Null pointer dereference in MySQL reply parser leading to client crash
5.4
CVE-2026-84727
Apache bRPC: Use-After-Free in RTMP Chunk Stream Handling via Abort Message