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Not in CISA KEV
HIGH severity

CVE-2021-45848 — nicotine-plus

HIGHFix: nicotine-plus/nicotine-plus@0e3e2fa

CVE-2021-45848 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-116 vulnerability in nicotine-plus. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for nicotine-plus — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Nicotine+ DoS on Null Character in Download Request

Also known asGHSA-p4v2-r99v-wjc2PYSEC-2026-687
Published
Updated
Affected
1 pkg
Patched
1 / 1
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Oct 11, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
1.6%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
Lower Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs75th percentile — riskier than 75% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%0.71%1.42%2.12%0.5%1.6%Apr 26Aug 26Oct 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

CVE-2021-45848 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

1 pkg affected
🐍nicotine-plus

Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.

Description

Denial of service (DoS) vulnerability in Nicotine+ starting with version 3.0.3 and prior to version 3.2.1 allows a user with a modified Soulseek client to crash Nicotine+ by sending a file download request with a file path containing a null character.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
🐍PyPInicotine-plus≥ 3.0.3&&< 3.2.13.2.1pip install --upgrade 'nicotine-plus==3.2.1'

Affected Products

2 products · 2 configurations
OS
fedorafedoraproject
1 version
34
Application
nicotine\+nicotine-plus
≥ 3.0.3 && < 3.2.1
range
Exploits & PoCs
1

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

Denial of service (DoS) vulnerability in Nicotine+ 3.0.3 and later allow…

github.comNVDMar 2022

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for nicotine-plus, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update nicotine-plus to 3.2.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-45848 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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

Denial of service (DoS) vulnerability in Nicotine+ starting with version 3.0.3 and prior to version 3.2.1 allows a user with a modified Soulseek client to crash Nicotine+ by sending a file download request with a file path containing a null character.
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

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CVE-2021-45848: nicotine-plus DoS — Fixed in 3.2.1