CVE-2023-25578 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in starlite. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for starlite — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Starlite DoS vulnerability when parsing multipart request body
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2023-25578.
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
starliteReal-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
Starlite is an Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface (ASGI) framework. Prior to version 1.5.2, the request body parsing in starlite allows a potentially unauthenticated attacker to consume a large amount of CPU time and RAM. The multipart body parser processes an unlimited number of file parts and an unlimited number of field parts. This is a remote, potentially unauthenticated Denial of Service vulnerability. This vulnerability affects applications with a request handler that accepts a Body(media_type=RequestEncodingType.MULTI_PART). The large amount of CPU time required for processing requests can block all available worker processes and significantly delay or slow down the processing of legitimate user requests. The large amount of RAM accumulated while processing requests can lead to Out-Of-Memory kills. Complete DoS is achievable by sending many concurrent multipart requests in a loop. Version 1.51.2 contains a patch for this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | starlite | all versions | 1.51.2pip install --upgrade 'starlite==1.51.2' |
Affected Products
starlitestarliteprojectResearch use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for starlite, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update starlite to 1.51.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-25578 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-2023-25578 in your dependencies?
Find it across PyPI, including transitive dependencies.