GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.4) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in wagtail. A fix is available for wagtail — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Wagtail vulnerable to denial-of-service via memory exhaustion when uploading large files
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- 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 GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9.
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
GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9 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 376,715 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
wagtail🐍wagtailReal-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
Impact
A memory exhaustion bug exists in Wagtail's handling of uploaded images and documents. For both images and documents, files are loaded into memory during upload for additional processing. A user with access to upload images or documents through the Wagtail admin interface could upload a file so large that it results in a crash or denial of service.
The vulnerability is not exploitable by an ordinary site visitor without access to the Wagtail admin. It can only be exploited by admin users with permission to upload images or documents.
Image uploads are restricted to 10MB by default, however this validation only happens on the frontend and on the backend after the vulnerable code.
Patches
Patched versions have been released as Wagtail 4.1.4 (for the LTS 4.1 branch) and Wagtail 4.2.2 (for the current 4.2 branch).
Workarounds
Site owners who are unable to upgrade to the new versions are encouraged to add extra protections outside of Wagtail to limit the size of uploaded files. Exactly how this is done will vary based on your hosting environment, but here are a few references for common setups:
- Nginx:
client_max_body_size - Apache:
LimitRequestBody - Cloudflare: Already imposes a limit of 100MB - 500MB depending on plan
- CloudFront:
SizeConstraint - Traefik:
traefik.http.middlewares.limit.buffering.maxRequestBodyBytes
The changes themselves are deep inside Wagtail, making patching incredibly difficult.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | wagtail | ≥ 4.2&&< 4.2.2 | 4.2.2pip install --upgrade 'wagtail==4.2.2' |
| 🐍PyPI | wagtail | all versions | 4.1.4pip install --upgrade 'wagtail==4.1.4' |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for wagtail, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update wagtail to 4.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9 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 GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-33pv-vcgh-jfg9 across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.