# CVE-2008-4298: Denial of service in n/a

> Remote attackers can cause denial of service via memory exhaustion in lighttpd by sending requests with duplicate headers.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.0 (`AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Over the internet
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 27 Sep 2008
- **Updated:** 7 Aug 2024
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2008-4298, GHSA-w6pj-53xr-3hq6

## What is CVE-2008-4298?

CVE-2008-4298 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 27 Sep 2008. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

Memory leak in the http_request_parse function in request.c in lighttpd before 1.4.20 allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of requests with duplicate request headers.

Weakness: CWE-399

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2008-4298?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Lighttpd Lighttpd.

## How do I fix CVE-2008-4298?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2008-4298 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2008-4298 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in n/a

- [CVE-2019-11072](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2019-11072/): Integer overflow in n/a (critical 9.8)
- [CVE-2007-3949](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-3949/): Security feature bypass in n/a (high 8.3)
- [CVE-2007-1870](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2007-1870/): Null dereference in n/a (high 7.8)
- [CVE-2022-30780](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-30780/): Denial of service in n/a (high 7.5)
- [CVE-2025-12642](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-12642/): HTTP Header Smuggling via Trailer Merge (medium 6.9)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2008-4298 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2008-4298 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in n/a, published on 27 Sep 2008. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2008-4298 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: n/a. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-4298/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-4298/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2008-4298
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2008-4298
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2008-4298

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2008-4298/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.