Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in KeycloakGHSA-52rg-hpwq-qp56
HIGHFix: keycloak/keycloak@bee4ca8GHSA-52rg-hpwq-qp56 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in org.keycloak:keycloak-parent. A fix is available for org.keycloak:keycloak-parent — see the affected versions and patch details below.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-52rg-hpwq-qp56 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,987 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
org.keycloak:keycloak-parentReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
A vulnerability was found in Keycloak before 11.0.1 where DoS attack is possible by sending twenty requests simultaneously to the specified keycloak server, all with a Content-Length header value that exceeds the actual byte count of the request body.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.keycloak:keycloak-parent | all versions | 11.0.1org.keycloak:keycloak-parent:11.0.1 |
Affected Products
keycloakredhatopenshift application runtimesredhatsingle sign-onredhatDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.keycloak:keycloak-parent, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.keycloak:keycloak-parent to 11.0.1 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-52rg-hpwq-qp56 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 possibility of this issue largely depends on the environment, specifically the load balancer or reverse proxies between the client and the server. The issue occurs when there is no load balancer in place. - Proper tuning of HTTP request timeout and keycloak database max pool size can mitigate this issue : bin/jboss-cli.sh --connect --commands='/subsystem=transactions:write-attribute(name=default-timeout,value=30),/subsystem=undertow/server=default-server/http-listener=default/:write-attribute(name=read-timeout,value=30000),/subsystem=undertow/server=default-server/https-listener=https/:write-attribute(name=read-timeout,value=30000),/subsystem=datasources/data-source=KeycloakDS/:write-a…Source: Red Hat security advisory for GHSA-52rg-hpwq-qp56 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.4.2 | see advisory | RHSA-2020:3501 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.4 for RHEL 6 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:9.0.5-1.redhat_00001.1.el6sso | RHSA-2020:3495 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.4 for RHEL 7 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:9.0.5-1.redhat_00001.1.el7sso | RHSA-2020:3496 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.4 for RHEL 8 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:9.0.5-1.redhat_00001.1.el8sso | RHSA-2020:3497 |
| Text-Only RHOAR | see advisory | RHSA-2020:3539 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-52rg-hpwq-qp56 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.