VulnerabilityPublished 24 Mar 2026

CVE-2026-33538: parse-server · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

Affects parse-serverSource CVE Database V5

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 8.7 High : upgrade to 9.6.0-alpha.52 or 8.6.58 soon.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 11:52 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

8.7High

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

EPSS: 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 36% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 9.6.0-alpha.52, 8.6.58

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Attack Requirements: None
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None
Vulnerable system integrity: None
Vulnerable system availability: High
Subsequent system confidentiality: None
Subsequent system integrity: None
Subsequent system availability: None

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

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable system is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed below, 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: The attacker must take no measurable action to exploit the vulnerability. The attack requires no target-specific circumvention to exploit the vulnerability. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: None: The successful attack does not depend on the deployment and execution conditions of the vulnerable system. The attacker can expect to be able to reach the vulnerability and execute the exploit under all or most instances of the vulnerability.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files of the vulnerable system to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without interaction from any human user, other than the attacker.
Vulnerable system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Vulnerable System.
Vulnerable system availability: High: There is a total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the Vulnerable System; 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 Vulnerable System (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).
Subsequent system confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the Subsequent System or all confidentiality impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the Subsequent System or all integrity impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.
Subsequent system availability: None: There is no impact to availability within the Subsequent System or all availability impact is constrained to the Vulnerable System.

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v4.0 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 24 Mar 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: 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 30 Oct 2026.

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.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity 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

Upgrade parse-server to 9.6.0-alpha.52 or 8.6.58; parse-community/parse-server to 8.6.58.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
parse-communityparse-server	Affected >=9.0.0 <9.6.0-alpha.52	Fixed in 9.6.0-alpha.52
parse-communityparse-server	Affected <8.6.58	Fixed in 8.6.58
npmparse-community/parse-server`pkg:npm/parse-community/parse-server`Other threats	Affected <8.6.58	Fixed in 8.6.58

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

AI-suggested

The primary mitigation is to upgrade parse-server to version 8.6.58 or later, or 9.6.0-alpha.52 or later, where this vulnerability has been patched. For organizations unable to upgrade immediately, temporary mitigations include implementing rate limiting on authentication requests to limit the number of requests with unconfigured provider names, thereby reducing the potential for resource exhaustion. Additionally, monitoring database query performance and unusual spikes in authentication requests can help detect exploitation attempts early. Applying database-level indexing on the provider field, if feasible, can reduce the cost of queries for unconfigured providers, though this may require custom modifications. Network-level protections such as web application firewalls (WAFs) can be configured to block or throttle suspicious authentication requests with unknown provider names. Finally, restricting access to parse-server endpoints to trusted IP ranges or behind VPNs can reduce exposure to unauthenticated attackers.

Description

Parse Server is an open source backend that can be deployed to any infrastructure that can run Node.js. Prior to versions 8.6.58 and 9.6.0-alpha.52, an unauthenticated attacker can cause denial of service by sending authentication requests with arbitrary, unconfigured provider names. The server executes a database query for each unconfigured provider before rejecting the request, and since no database index exists for unconfigured providers, each request triggers a full collection scan on the user database. This can be parallelized to saturate database resources. This issue has been patched in versions 8.6.58 and 9.6.0-alpha.52.

Impact

This vulnerability can severely impact organizations using vulnerable versions of parse-server by enabling attackers to cause denial of service through resource exhaustion of the backend database. The resulting service outages can disrupt applications relying on parse-server for authentication and backend services, leading to downtime, loss of user trust, and potential financial losses. Since the attack requires no authentication and can be performed remotely, it poses a significant risk to publicly accessible parse-server deployments. Organizations with high user volumes or critical services dependent on parse-server are especially vulnerable to large-scale denial of service attacks that can saturate database resources and degrade overall system performance. Additionally, the lack of indexing causing full collection scans may increase operational costs due to increased database load. Although no known exploits are currently reported, the vulnerability's characteristics make it a likely target for attackers seeking to disrupt services.

CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place.
Architecture and Design
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or; uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Sustained Client Engagement (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 24 Mar 2026, 18:46 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-400

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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