GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr

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Source
https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr
Import Source
https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2026/09/GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr/GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr.json
JSON Data
https://api.osv.dev/v1/vulns/GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr
Aliases
Downstream
CGA (3)
MINI (3)
Published
2026-09-16T22:12:17Z
Modified
2026-09-16T22:30:08Z
Severity
  • 6.5 (Medium) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CVSS Calculator
Summary
vLLM: Unauthenticated audio decompression-bomb DoS in /v1/chat/completions
Details

Summary

The audio decode-duration guard (max_duration_s, env VLLM_MAX_AUDIO_DECODE_DURATION_S, default 600s) that protects against audio decompression-bomb DoS is wired into only the speech-to-text path (/v1/audio/transcriptions). The chat audio path (/v1/chat/completions, input_audio content parts) calls the same decoder with no limit, so an unauthenticated client can submit a few-KB compressed audio file that expands to multiple GB of float32 PCM at decode time, OOM-killing the worker. This is a distinct sibling of CVE-2026-5497 (video frame-count bomb, VideoMediaIO.load_base64) and GHSA-pq5c-rjhq-qp7p (image) in the same media subsystem.

Verified against main at HEAD d78650c (2026-06-16); applicable to the latest release v0.23.0.

Details

The guard rejects long audio during decode (before allocation), implemented in vllm/multimodal/media/audio.py:

  • load_audio_pyav — metadata reject (~82-98) and live sample-count reject (~129-136)
  • load_audio_soundfile — frames reject (~165-174)

All are gated on if max_duration_s is not None.

It is passed in exactly one place — the transcription serving layer:

# .../speech_to_text/base/serving.py:~170-174
load_audio(buf, sr=..., max_duration_s=self.max_audio_decode_duration_s)
#   self.max_audio_decode_duration_s = envs.VLLM_MAX_AUDIO_DECODE_DURATION_S  (default 600)

The chat path never threads it:

# vllm/multimodal/media/audio.py:237-238
def load_bytes(self, data: bytes) -> tuple[npt.NDArray, float]:
    return load_audio(BytesIO(data), sr=None)   # no max_duration_s -> every guard above is skipped

Unauthenticated reachability chain (chat): parse_input_audio (chat_utils.py) -> parse_audio -> connector.fetch_audio -> AudioMediaIO._load_data_url -> load_base64 -> load_bytes -> load_audio(..., sr=None). The connector never passes max_duration_s, and inline data: URLs need no HTTP fetch (so VLLM_AUDIO_FETCH_TIMEOUT does not bound them). The OpenAI-compatible server has no auth by default (auth only when --api-key / VLLM_API_KEY is set).

Impact

Unauthenticated remote denial of service (availability) via memory amplification on a default-no-auth endpoint, on any deployment serving an audio-capable model. Same class and impact as the sibling CVE-2026-5497 (video). CWE-770 / CWE-409.

Fix

A fix was introduced in this MR: https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/pull/45908

Database specific 
{
    "cwe_ids":  [
        "CWE-770"
    ],
    "github_reviewed":  true,
    "github_reviewed_at":  "2026-09-16T22:12:17Z",
    "nvd_published_at":  "2026-09-16T17:17:24Z",
    "severity":  "MODERATE"
}
References

Affected packages

PyPI / vllm

Package

Name
vllm
View open source insights on deps.dev
Purl
pkg:pypi/vllm

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
0 Unknown introduced version / All previous versions are affected
Fixed
0.24.0

Affected versions

0.*
0.0.1
0.1.0
0.1.1
0.1.2
0.1.3
0.1.4
0.1.5
0.1.6
0.1.7
0.2.0
0.2.1
0.2.1.post1
0.2.2
0.2.3
0.2.4
0.2.5
0.2.6
0.2.7
0.3.0
0.3.1
0.3.2
0.3.3
0.4.0
0.4.0.post1
0.4.1
0.4.2
0.4.3
0.5.0
0.5.0.post1
0.5.1
0.5.2
0.5.3
0.5.3.post1
0.5.4
0.5.5
0.6.0
0.6.1
0.6.1.post1
0.6.1.post2
0.6.2
0.6.3
0.6.3.post1
0.6.4
0.6.4.post1
0.6.5
0.6.6
0.6.6.post1
0.7.0
0.7.1
0.7.2
0.7.3
0.8.0
0.8.1
0.8.2
0.8.3
0.8.4
0.8.5
0.8.5.post1
0.9.0
0.9.0.1
0.9.1
0.9.2
0.10.0
0.10.1
0.10.1.1
0.10.2
0.11.0
0.11.1
0.11.2
0.12.0
0.13.0
0.14.0
0.14.1
0.15.0
0.15.1
0.16.0
0.17.0
0.17.1
0.18.0
0.18.1
0.19.0
0.19.1
0.20.0
0.20.1
0.20.2
0.21.0
0.22.0
0.22.1
0.23.0

Database specific

last_known_affected_version_range 
"<= 0.23.0"
source 
"https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2026/09/GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr/GHSA-hcwq-8wjf-3gcr.json"