{"cve":"CVE-2023-33953","nvd":{"published":"2023-08-09T13:15:09.370","modified":"2026-06-17T06:02:35.580","status":"Modified","description":"gRPC contains a vulnerability that allows hpack table accounting errors could lead to unwanted disconnects between clients and servers in exceptional cases/ Three vectors were found that allow the following DOS attacks:\n\n- Unbounded memory buffering in the HPACK parser\n- Unbounded CPU consumption in the HPACK parser\n\nThe unbounded CPU consumption is down to a copy that occurred per-input-block in the parser, and because that could be unbounded due to the memory copy bug we end up with an O(n^2) parsing loop, with n selected by the client.\n\nThe unbounded memory buffering bugs:\n\n- The header size limit check was behind the string reading code, so we needed to first buffer up to a 4 gigabyte string before rejecting it as longer than 8 or 16kb.\n- HPACK varints have an encoding quirk whereby an infinite number of 0’s can be added at the start of an integer. gRPC’s hpack parser needed to read all of them before concluding a parse.\n- gRPC’s metadata overflow check was performed per frame, so that the following sequence of frames could cause infinite buffering: HEADERS: containing a: 1 CONTINUATION: containing a: 2 CONTINUATION: containing a: 3 etc…","cvss_v4":null,"cvss_v3":{"version":"3.1","vector":"CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H","score":7.5},"cwes":["CWE-770","CWE-834","CWE-789"],"references":["https://cloud.google.com/support/bulletins#gcp-2023-022","https://cloud.google.com/support/bulletins#gcp-2023-022"],"products":["grpc:grpc"],"source":"nvd","synced_at":"2026-10-19T21:39:14.809778102+00:00"},"epss":{"cve":"CVE-2023-33953","score":0.00479,"percentile":0.41372,"date":"2026-10-31"},"kev":null,"osv":[{"id":"GHSA-496j-2rq6-j6cc","url":"https://osv.dev/vulnerability/GHSA-496j-2rq6-j6cc","summary":"Excessive Iteration in gRPC","modified":"2026-07-07T17:57:05.612219692Z","packages":[{"ecosystem":"PyPI","name":"grpcio","purl":"pkg:pypi/grpcio","ranges":["<1.53.2"],"fixed":["1.53.2"]},{"ecosystem":"PyPI","name":"grpcio","purl":"pkg:pypi/grpcio","ranges":[">=1.54.0 <1.54.3"],"fixed":["1.54.3"]},{"ecosystem":"PyPI","name":"grpcio","purl":"pkg:pypi/grpcio","ranges":[">=1.55.0 <1.55.2"],"fixed":["1.55.2"]},{"ecosystem":"PyPI","name":"grpcio","purl":"pkg:pypi/grpcio","ranges":[">=1.56.0 <1.56.2"],"fixed":["1.56.2"]},{"ecosystem":"RubyGems","name":"grpc","purl":"pkg:gem/grpc","ranges":["<1.53.2"],"fixed":["1.53.2"]},{"ecosystem":"RubyGems","name":"grpc","purl":"pkg:gem/grpc","ranges":[">=1.54.0 <1.54.3"],"fixed":["1.54.3"]},{"ecosystem":"RubyGems","name":"grpc","purl":"pkg:gem/grpc","ranges":[">=1.55.0 <1.55.2"],"fixed":["1.55.2"]},{"ecosystem":"RubyGems","name":"grpc","purl":"pkg:gem/grpc","ranges":[">=1.56.0 <1.56.2"],"fixed":["1.56.2"]}]},{"id":"PYSEC-2026-1424","url":"https://osv.dev/vulnerability/PYSEC-2026-1424","summary":"Excessive Iteration in gRPC","modified":"2026-07-07T17:47:41.894319032Z","packages":[{"ecosystem":"PyPI","name":"grpcio","purl":"pkg:pypi/grpcio","ranges":["<1.53.2",">=1.54.0 <1.54.3",">=1.55.0 <1.55.2",">=1.56.0 <1.56.2"],"fixed":["1.53.2","1.54.3","1.55.2","1.56.2"]}]}],"attribution":["This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.","EPSS scores: FIRST Exploit Prediction Scoring System, https://www.first.org/epss","Known exploited vulnerabilities: CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog","Package advisories: OSV (https://osv.dev), from the GitHub Advisory Database, PyPA, Go, RustSec and other ecosystem databases, under CC-BY 4.0 or CC0","CVE records: the CVE Program's CVE List (https://www.cve.org), under its terms of use (https://www.cve.org/Legal/TermsOfUse). CVE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation; this product is not affiliated with the CVE Program."]}