CVE-2024-8418 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in aardvark-dns. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for aardvark-dns — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Containers/aardvark-dns: tcp query handling flaw in aardvark-dns leading to denial of service
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-8418.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-8418 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 378,156 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
aardvark-dnsReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects crates.io packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A flaw was found in Aardvark-dns, which is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack due to the serial processing of TCP DNS queries. An attacker can exploit this flaw by keeping a TCP connection open indefinitely, causing the server to become unresponsive and resulting in other DNS queries timing out. This issue prevents legitimate users from accessing DNS services, thereby disrupting normal operations and causing service downtime.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | aardvark-dns | ≥ 1.12.0&&< 1.12.2 | 1.12.2cargo update -p aardvark-dns --precise 1.12.2 |
Research 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 aardvark-dns, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update aardvark-dns to 1.12.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-8418 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-8418 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-8418. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
This vulnerability is classified as moderate severity because it affects the availability of the service rather than compromising data confidentiality or integrity. The CVSS score reflects its impact on system availability, as the DoS attack can lead to significant downtime and service disruption but does not involve…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | aardvark-dns-2:1.14.0-1.el9 | RHSA-2025:7094 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-8418 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-8418 across crates.io dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.