Tornado's gzip decompression routines work in limited-size chunks, but have no overall limit for the total size of decompressed chunks that…
CWE-409·Published 2026-06-15
Tornado's gzip decompression routines work in limited-size chunks, but have no overall limit for the total size of decompressed chunks that they will accumulate (There has always been a limit for the total *compressed* size). This allows a malicious server to consume effectively unlimited amounts of memory if it is accessed via SimpleAsyncHTTPClient in its default configuration. `HTTPServer` is not affected in its default configuration, but it is if `decompress_request=True` is set. This bug is fixed in Tornado 6.5.6. `max_body_size` is now checked both for the compressed and cumulative decompressed size of the response. Prior to upgrading, this issue can be mitigated by setting `decompress_response=False` or using `CurlAsyncHTTPClient`.
Tornado's gzip decompression routines work in limited-size chunks, but have no overall limit for the total size of decompressed chunks that they will accumulate (There has always been a limit for the total *compressed* size). This allows a malicious server to consume effectively unlimited amounts of memory if it is accessed via SimpleAsyncHTTPClient in its default configuration. `HTTPServer` is not affected in its default configuration, but it is if `decompress_request=True` is set. This bug is fixed in Tornado 6.5.6. `max_body_size` is now checked both for the compressed and cumulative decompressed size of the response. Prior to upgrading, this issue can be mitigated by setting `decompress_response=False` or using `CurlAsyncHTTPClient`.
| Version | Type | Source | Base | Exp | Impact | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Secondary | GHSA | 7.5 | — | — | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |