CVE-2022-41323 is a high-severity denial of service (DoS) vulnerability affecting Django versions 3.2 prior to 3.2.16, 4.0 prior to 4.0.8, and 4.1 prior to 4.1.2. The vulnerability arises from the way Django processes internationalized URLs, specifically the 'locale' parameter, which is treated as a regular expression. An attacker can craft a malicious locale parameter that triggers excessive backtracking or resource consumption during regex evaluation, leading to a denial of service by exhausting server CPU or memory resources. This vulnerability is classified under CWE-1333, which relates to inefficient regular expression complexity leading to performance degradation. Exploitation does not require authentication or user interaction and can be performed remotely over the network. The CVSS 3.1 base score is 7.5 (high), reflecting the network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction, and impact limited to availability (no confidentiality or integrity impact). No known exploits in the wild have been reported to date. The vulnerability affects web applications built on the affected Django versions that utilize internationalized URLs with locale parameters, which is common in multilingual websites. Since Django is a widely used Python web framework, this vulnerability could impact a broad range of web services if unpatched. The lack of patch links in the provided data suggests users should refer to official Django security advisories for updates. Overall, this vulnerability allows attackers to degrade or disrupt service availability by sending specially crafted requests that exploit inefficient regex processing in locale handling.

For European organizations, the impact of CVE-2022-41323 can be significant, especially for those relying on Django-based web applications that support multiple languages and locales. Many European companies, government agencies, and service providers operate multilingual websites to serve diverse populations, making use of Django's internationalization features. An attacker exploiting this vulnerability can cause denial of service conditions, leading to downtime, degraded user experience, and potential loss of revenue or trust. Critical public-facing services, including e-government portals, healthcare platforms, and financial services, could be disrupted, affecting citizens and customers. Additionally, the disruption could be leveraged as part of a broader attack campaign or to distract from other malicious activities. The vulnerability's ease of exploitation and remote attack vector increase the risk of widespread abuse. However, the absence of known exploits in the wild suggests that proactive patching and monitoring can effectively mitigate the threat. Organizations with high availability requirements and those subject to regulatory compliance around service continuity should prioritize addressing this vulnerability to avoid operational and reputational damage.

European organizations should take the following specific mitigation steps: 1) Immediately identify all Django applications in use, particularly those versions 3.2 prior to 3.2.16, 4.0 prior to 4.0.8, and 4.1 prior to 4.1.2. 2) Apply the official patches or upgrade to the fixed Django versions as soon as possible. If patching is not immediately feasible, implement temporary mitigations such as limiting request rates or blocking suspicious requests targeting the locale parameter using web application firewalls (WAFs). 3) Review and restrict the allowed values for the locale parameter to a predefined whitelist of supported locales, reducing the risk of malicious regex input. 4) Monitor web server logs and application telemetry for unusual spikes in requests containing locale parameters or signs of resource exhaustion. 5) Conduct security testing and code reviews to ensure no other regex-based inputs are vulnerable to similar DoS attacks. 6) Educate development and operations teams about the risks of inefficient regex patterns and the importance of input validation. 7) Maintain an incident response plan to quickly address any DoS incidents related to this vulnerability. These targeted actions go beyond generic advice by focusing on the specific attack vector and the affected Django versions.