RUSTSEC-2026-0342 Zero-length DATAGRAM frames bypass the receive buffer limit in quinn-proto

Not scored Published

Remote attackers can cause denial of service by sending empty DATAGRAM frames that bypass buffer limits, exhausting memory in applications using quinn-proto.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Not needed
Attackable
Over the internet
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is RUSTSEC-2026-0342?

RUSTSEC-2026-0342 is a denial of service vulnerability in quinn-proto, published on 17 Aug 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

quinn-proto bounds its queue of received datagrams by charging each queued frame's payload length against TransportConfig::datagram_receive_buffer_size, evicting the oldest datagrams when the limit is exceeded. A DATAGRAM frame with an empty payload was charged zero bytes, so it never triggered eviction and was appended to the queue, which has no other bound.

DATAGRAM frames are not subject to flow control. A peer that has completed the handshake can therefore send a stream of empty DATAGRAM frames and grow the receiver's heap without limit until the process is killed. An application that reads incoming datagrams but does so more slowly than the peer sends them is still affected. Receiving datagrams is enabled by default, so all endpoints that do not explicitly set datagram_receive_buffer_size(None) are affected.

The send path had the same accounting flaw: an application could enqueue an unbounded number of empty outgoing datagrams without ever receiving SendDatagramError::Blocked.

The flaw was corrected in 0.11.17 by accounting for the fixed per-datagram overhead in both directions, so that every queued datagram consumes buffer space.

Thanks to @alexpyattaev for reporting this issue.

Which versions are affected by RUSTSEC-2026-0342?

1 open source package ship an affected version, including quinn-proto.

PackageAffectedFixed in
quinn-proto crates.ioFrom 0.5.00.11.17

How do I fix RUSTSEC-2026-0342?

Upgrade quinn-proto to 0.11.17 or later.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is RUSTSEC-2026-0342 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of RUSTSEC-2026-0342 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as GHSA-2hv7-gw8g-gpq5.

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