CVE-2026-84378: CWE-407: Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity in pydantic httpx2
Description
### Summary HTTPX2's Server-Sent Events (SSE) parser repeatedly copied and rescanned buffered text when a server split one unterminated line across many response chunks. The total work grows quadratically with the length of the line. An attacker-controlled or compromised SSE endpoint can exploit this behavior to consume excessive client CPU. ### Details Before version 2.10.0, HTTPX2 combined the complete pending SSE line with each newly received chunk and then scanned the combined text for line separators. If an SSE server sends a long line as many small chunks without a line separator, every chunk causes all previously received text to be copied and scanned again. For `n` fixed-size chunks, this results in O(n²) processing. The behavior affects both `httpx2.Client.sse()` and `httpx2.AsyncClient.sse()`. Other response APIs do not use the SSE parsing path. ### Impact Applications that consume SSE from an attacker-controlled or compromised endpoint can experience excessive CPU usage. A crafted stream can block a synchronous worker or the asynchronous event loop that is consuming it, degrading availability for other work in that process. Confidentiality and integrity are not affected. ### Mitigation Upgrade to HTTPX2 2.10.0 or later. SSE parsing now accumulates incomplete line fragments and combines them only when necessary, making processing linear in the amount of received data. HTTPX2 2.10.0 also limits buffered SSE events to 1 MiB by default through `max_event_size`. If upgrading is not immediately possible, only consume SSE from trusted endpoints and enforce an external size or time budget on the stream.
CVSS v3.1
Score 5.9medium
Affected software
pydantic
httpx2
Weaknesses
AI-Powered Analysis
Machine-generated threat intelligence
Technical Analysis
HTTPX2 versions before 2.10.0 have an inefficient SSE parser that concatenates the entire pending line with each new chunk and rescans it for line separators. When an SSE server sends a long line split into many small chunks without line separators, this results in O(n²) processing time due to repeated copying and scanning. This affects both httpx2.Client.sse() and httpx2.AsyncClient.sse() methods. An attacker-controlled or compromised SSE endpoint can exploit this to cause excessive CPU usage on the client, potentially blocking synchronous workers or asynchronous event loops. The vulnerability does not affect confidentiality or integrity. The issue is fixed in httpx2 2.10.0 by accumulating incomplete line fragments more efficiently and limiting buffered SSE event size to 1 MiB by default.
Potential Impact
Exploitation of this vulnerability can cause excessive CPU consumption on clients consuming SSE streams from attacker-controlled or compromised endpoints. This can degrade availability by blocking synchronous workers or asynchronous event loops processing the SSE stream. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity of data.
Mitigation Recommendations
Upgrade to httpx2 version 2.10.0 or later, which contains an improved SSE parser with linear processing time and a default 1 MiB limit on buffered SSE event size. If upgrading immediately is not possible, only consume SSE from trusted endpoints and enforce external size or time limits on the SSE stream to mitigate excessive resource consumption.
Technical Details
- Data Version
- 5.2
- Assigner Short Name
- GitHub_M
- Date Reserved
- 2026-09-01T16:27:58.130Z
- Cvss Version
- 3.1
- State
- PUBLISHED
Threat ID: 6a986636acd9273b498ff4df
Added to database: 09/02/2026, 18:08:54 UTC
Last enriched: 09/29/2026, 05:03:59 UTC
Last updated: 10/17/2026, 18:48:23 UTC
Views: 125
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