CVE-2026-23842
HIGHChatterBot has Denial of Service via Database Connection Pool Exhaustion
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.
Blast Radius
chatterbotReal-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
ChatterBot is a machine learning, conversational dialog engine for creating chat bots. ChatterBot versions up to 1.2.10 are vulnerable to a denial-of-service condition caused by improper database session and connection pool management. Concurrent invocations of the get_response() method can exhaust the underlying SQLAlchemy connection pool, resulting in persistent service unavailability and requiring a manual restart to recover. Version 1.2.11 fixes the issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | chatterbot | all versions | 1.2.11 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for chatterbot. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update chatterbot to 1.2.11 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-23842 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-23842 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-23842. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-23842 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-23842 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.