CVE-2026-31812 — quinn-proto
Fix: quinn-rs/quinn#2559CVE-2026-31812 is a CWE-248 vulnerability in quinn-proto. A fix is available for quinn-proto — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Quinn affected by unauthenticated remote DoS via panic in QUIC transport parameter parsing
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.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-31812.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
Real-World Exposure
quinn-protoReal-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
Summary
A remote, unauthenticated attacker can trigger a denial of service in applications using vulnerable quinn versions by sending a crafted QUIC Initial packet containing malformed quic_transport_parameters. In quinn-proto parsing logic, attacker-controlled varints are decoded with unwrap(), so truncated encodings cause Err(UnexpectedEnd) and panic. This is reachable over the network with a single packet and no prior trust or authentication.
Details
The issue is panic-on-untrusted-input in QUIC transport parameter parsing.
In quinn-proto (observed in quinn-proto 0.11.13), parsing of some transport parameters uses a fallible varint decode followed by unwrap(). For malformed/truncated parameter values, decode returns UnexpectedEnd, and unwrap() panics.
Observed output:
thread 'tokio-rt-worker' (2366474) panicked at quinn-proto/src/transport_parameters.rs:473:67:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: UnexpectedEnd
PoC
Reproduces against the upstream Quinn server example.
- Start server:
cargo run --example server -- ./
- Prepare PoC client environment:
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install aioquic
- Run PoC script attack.py against server QUIC listener (default example target shown):
python attack.py
Observed output
thread 'tokio-rt-worker' (2366903) panicked at quinn-proto/src/transport_parameters.rs:473:67:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: UnexpectedEnd
Impact
Vulnerability type: Remote Denial of Service (panic/crash)
Attack requirements: Network reachability to UDP QUIC listener
Authentication/privileges: None
Who is impacted: Any server/application using affected quinn/quinn-proto versions where this parse path is reachable; process-level impact depends on integration panic handling policy
This vulnerability was originally submitted by @revofusion to the Ethereum Foundation bug bounty program
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🦀crates.io | quinn-proto | all versions | 0.11.14cargo update -p quinn-proto --precise 0.11.14 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for quinn-proto, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update quinn-proto to 0.11.14 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-31812 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.
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.
The availability impact of this flaw is limited to specific services on Red Hat systems. Host system availability is not at risk.
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-31812 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Logging Subsystem for Red Hat OpenShift 6.4 | openshift-logging/vector-rhel9:1780052069 | RHSA-2026:22862 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 | ansible-automation-platform-26/lightspeed-chatbot-rhel9:1777398576 | RHSA-2026:13545 |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI 2.25 | rhoai/odh-fms-guardrails-orchestrator-rhel9:1791535252 | RHSA-2026:87410 |
| Red Hat OpenShift AI 3.3 | rhoai/odh-model-registry-job-async-upload-rhel9:1778596806 | RHSA-2026:19712 |
| Red Hat Trusted Artifact Signer 1.3 | rhtas/tuffer-rhel9:1773307309 | RHSA-2026:5459 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-31812 in your dependencies?
Find it across crates.io, including transitive dependencies.