CVE-2026-21441

Public on 2026-01-07
Modified on 2026-01-10
Description
urllib3 is an HTTP client library for Python. urllib3's streaming API is designed for the efficient handling of large HTTP responses by reading the content in chunks, rather than loading the entire response body into memory at once. urllib3 can perform decoding or decompression based on the HTTP `Content-Encoding` header (e.g., `gzip`, `deflate`, `br`, or `zstd`). When using the streaming API, the library decompresses only the necessary bytes, enabling partial content consumption. Starting in version 1.22 and prior to version 2.6.3, for HTTP redirect responses, the library would read the entire response body to drain the connection and decompress the content unnecessarily. This decompression occurred even before any read methods were called, and configured read limits did not restrict the amount of decompressed data. As a result, there was no safeguard against decompression bombs. A malicious server could exploit this to trigger excessive resource consumption on the client. Applications and libraries are affected when they stream content from untrusted sources by setting `preload_content=False` when they do not disable redirects. Users should upgrade to at least urllib3 v2.6.3, in which the library does not decode content of redirect responses when `preload_content=False`. If upgrading is not immediately possible, disable redirects by setting `redirect=False` for requests to untrusted source.
Severity
Important severity
Important
See what this means
CVSS v3 Base Score
7.5
See breakdown

Affected Packages

Platform Package Release Date Advisory Status
Amazon Linux 2 - Core python-pip Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 python-pip Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2 - Core python-urllib3 Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 python-urllib3 Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2 - Core python3-urllib3 Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 python3.11-pip Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 python3.12-pip Pending Fix
Amazon Linux 2023 python3.13-pip Pending Fix

CVSS Scores

Score Type Score Vector
Amazon Linux CVSSv3 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD CVSSv3 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H