VulnerabilityPublished 13 Aug 2026Updated 31 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-59939: httplib2 · Decompression Bomb Denial of Service via Unbounded gzip/deflate Response Handling

Affects gcalcliSource GCVE Database

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Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High : upgrade to 4.5.1_13 soon.

Data as of 1 Nov 2026, 01:39 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

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

Patch: Available – fixed in 4.5.1_13

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 13 Aug 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 31 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 gcalcli to 4.5.1_13.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewgcalcli`pkg:brew/gcalcli`Other threats	Affected >=4.3.0 <4.5.1_13	Fixed in 4.5.1_13

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

AI-suggested

A patch is available in httplib2 version 4.5.1_13 that addresses this vulnerability. Users should upgrade to version 4.5.1_13 or later to mitigate this issue. Until patched, avoid making HTTP requests with httplib2 to untrusted or attacker-controlled servers. No other mitigations are specified in the advisory.

Description

The httplib2 HTTP client library is vulnerable to a decompression bomb denial of service via unbounded gzip or deflate response handling. A malicious HTTP server can send a small compressed payload that decompresses to a very large size in memory, causing the client process to run out of memory or crash. This affects any application using httplib2.Http().request() with untrusted HTTP endpoints. The vulnerability is fixed in version 4.5.1_13.

Impact

Applications using httplib2 to make HTTP requests to untrusted or attacker-controlled servers can be forced to consume excessive memory during decompression of maliciously crafted gzip or deflate responses. This can cause the client process to crash with MemoryError or be killed by the operating system due to out-of-memory conditions. The attack requires no authentication or special configuration and can be triggered simply by receiving a crafted HTTP response. The amplification ratio can exceed 1000x, making small compressed payloads expand to very large memory usage.

Summary

httplib2 performs unbounded decompression of HTTP response bodies encoded with Content-Encoding: gzip or deflate. The decompression functions gzip.GzipFile.read() and zlib.decompress() are called without limits on the decompressed size, allowing a malicious server to send a small compressed payload (~150 KB) that expands to an arbitrarily large size (e.g., 150 MB). This leads to MemoryError or OOM-kill in the client process. The decompression is triggered automatically on every HTTP response with the relevant encoding header. There is no mechanism to limit decompression size or ratio, making the client vulnerable to decompression bomb attacks. The issue is fixed in httplib2 version 4.5.1_13.

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What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 1 Nov 2026, 01:39 UTC

Technical details

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