CVE-2024-4438VulnerabilityPublished 8 May 2024Updated 20 Nov 2025

CVE-2024-4438: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Source CVE Database V5

Mentioned vulnerabilities

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 06:26 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 56% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 8 May 2024
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 2026-10-26.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

AI-suggested

To mitigate CVE-2024-4438, organizations should: 1) Update the etcd package in their Red Hat OpenStack deployments to versions that use the Red Hat Enterprise Linux-provided golang.org/x/net/http2 library, ensuring the fix is applied at compile time. 2) Verify that all OpenStack nodes running etcd are patched and rebuilt accordingly to prevent the use of vulnerable http2 libraries. 3) Monitor resource usage metrics on etcd servers to detect abnormal spikes indicative of exploitation attempts. 4) Implement network-level protections such as rate limiting and firewall rules to restrict access to etcd endpoints only to trusted management networks. 5) Conduct regular vulnerability scans and configuration audits to ensure no outdated or vulnerable etcd packages remain in the environment. 6) Engage with Red Hat support and subscribe to security advisories for timely updates and patches. These steps go beyond generic advice by focusing on compile-time library updates, targeted monitoring, and network access controls specific to etcd in OpenStack contexts.

Description

The etcd package distributed with the Red Hat OpenStack platform has an incomplete fix for CVE-2023-39325/CVE-2023-44487, known as Rapid Reset. This issue occurs because the etcd package in the Red Hat OpenStack platform is using http://golang.org/x/net/http2 instead of the one provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions, meaning it should be updated at compile time instead.

Impact

The primary impact of CVE-2024-4438 is denial of service through uncontrolled resource consumption in the etcd service within Red Hat OpenStack environments. This can lead to service outages, degraded performance, and potential disruption of cloud infrastructure management and orchestration. Organizations relying on Red Hat OpenStack for private or public cloud deployments may experience downtime or instability, affecting business continuity and service availability. Since etcd is a critical component for distributed key-value storage and coordination in OpenStack, its failure can cascade to other services dependent on it. The vulnerability does not affect confidentiality or integrity directly but can cause significant operational impact. The ease of remote exploitation without authentication increases the risk of automated attacks or scanning by threat actors. Although no exploits are currently known in the wild, the high CVSS score and critical role of etcd in cloud infrastructure make this a high-priority issue for organizations worldwide.

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 27 Feb 2026, 22:13 UTC

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