VulnerabilityPublished 6 Oct 2026Updated 29 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-103261: Tornado · Unbounded query-string argument count allows event-loop-stalling DoS

Affects jupyterlabSource GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-103261· Medium 6.9

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 6.9 Medium : upgrade to 4.6.4 when convenient.

Data as of 30 Oct 2026, 09:00 UTC

CVSS 4.0 base score

6.9Medium

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

Patch: Available – fixed in 4.6.4

CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/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: Low
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: Low: Performance is reduced or there are interruptions in resource availability. Even if repeated exploitation of the vulnerability is possible, the attacker does not have the ability to completely deny service to legitimate users. The resources in the Vulnerable System are either partially available all of the time, or fully available only some of the time, but overall there is no direct, serious consequence to the Vulnerable System.
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 1 Oct 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 29 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 jupyterlab to 4.6.4.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Homebrewjupyterlab`pkg:brew/jupyterlab`Other threats	Affected >=1.2.0 <4.6.4	Fixed in 4.6.4

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 Tornado version 4.6.4 that adds a maximum field count limit (1000) to query string parsing, matching the existing POST body limit. This fix also ensures that requests exceeding this limit receive a clean HTTP 400 Bad Request response instead of an uncaught error. Users should upgrade to Tornado 4.6.4 or later to remediate this vulnerability. No additional mitigation is required once patched.

Description

CVE-2026-103261 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in Tornado 6.5.8 where the HTTPServerRequest.__init__ method parses query strings without limiting the number of fields. This allows an attacker to send a GET request with thousands of query parameters, causing excessive CPU usage and stalling Tornado's single-threaded event loop. The flaw is due to missing a max_num_fields limit on query string parsing, unlike the POST body parsing which has a 1000-field cap. This leads to event-loop blocking and degraded response times for all clients sharing the same IOLoop. The issue is fixed in Tornado 4.6.4 by adding a 1000-field limit and proper error handling.

Impact

An unauthenticated remote attacker can degrade the availability of Tornado-based servers by sending GET requests with excessively large numbers of query parameters. This causes CPU exhaustion and stalls the single-threaded event loop, slowing or blocking processing of all other requests on the same IOLoop. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity. The attack requires no special privileges or authentication and uses relatively low bandwidth (~305KB for multiple concurrent requests).

Summary

The vulnerability arises from Tornado's HTTPServerRequest.__init__ method parsing the URL query string using parse_qs_bytes without a limit on the number of fields, unlike the POST body parsing which enforces a 1000-field cap. An attacker can craft a GET request with thousands of short key=value pairs in the query string, fitting under the max_header_size (default 65536 bytes), causing synchronous CPU-intensive parsing inside Tornado's single-threaded IOLoop. This stalls the event loop, delaying processing of all other connections and resulting in a denial-of-service condition. The fix adds a max_num_fields=1000 limit to query string parsing and converts parsing errors into HTTP 400 responses, consistent with POST body handling. The vulnerability affects all Tornado servers and applications prior to version 4.6.4.

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Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 30 Oct 2026, 09:00 UTC

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