CVE-2016-10542 — ws
HIGHCVE-2016-10542 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in ws. A fix is available for ws — see the affected versions and patch details below.
DoS due to excessively large websocket message in ws
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
Where this sits among everything scored
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
wsnpmDescription
Affected versions of ws do not appropriately limit the size of incoming websocket payloads, which may result in a denial of service condition when the node process crashes after receiving a large payload.
Recommendation
Update to version 1.1.1 or later.
Alternatively, set the maxpayload option for the ws server to a value smaller than 256MB.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | ws | all versions | 1.1.1npm install ws@1.1.1 |
Affected Products
wsws_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for ws, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update ws to 1.1.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-10542 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2016-10542 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.