Exploit for Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Redis CVE-2021-32675

Redis is an open source, in-memory database that persists on disk. When parsing an incoming Redis Standard Protocol (RESP) request, Redis allocates memory according to user-specified values which determine the number of elements (in the multi-bulk header) and size of each element (in the bulk header). An attacker delivering specially crafted requests over multiple connections can cause the server to allocate significant amount of memory. Because the same parsing mechanism is used to handle authentication requests, this vulnerability can also be exploited by unauthenticated users. The problem is fixed in Redis versions 6.2.6, 6.0.16 and 5.0.14. An additional workaround to mitigate this problem without patching the redis-server executable is to block access to prevent unauthenticated users from connecting to Redis. This can be done in different ways: Using network access control tools like firewalls, iptables, security groups, etc. or Enabling TLS and requiring users to authenticate using client side certificates.

Published 4 Oct 2021Updated 17 Jun 202614 sources
CVSS 7.5 ✓ VERIFIED REFERENCE

What happened

Redis is an open source, in-memory database that persists on disk. When parsing an incoming Redis Standard Protocol (RESP) request, Redis allocates memory according to user-specified values which determine the number of elements (in the multi-bulk header) and size of each element (in the bulk header). An attacker delivering specially crafted requests over multiple connections can cause the server to allocate significant amount of memory. Because the same parsing mechanism is used to handle authentication requests, this vulnerability can also be exploited by unauthenticated users. The problem is fixed in Redis versions 6.2.6, 6.0.16 and 5.0.14. An additional workaround to mitigate this problem without patching the redis-server executable is to block access to prevent unauthenticated users from connecting to Redis. This can be done in different ways: Using network access control tools like firewalls, iptables, security groups, etc. or Enabling TLS and requiring users to authenticate using client side certificates.

Affected versions

redis: < 5.0.14; >= 6.0.0, < 6.0.16; >= 6.2.0, < 6.2.6 Fixed: See vendor advisory.

Why it matters

This source correlation may provide earlier visibility while structured CVE metadata is still being updated.

Detection & mitigation

  • Review the original advisory and validate affected versions.
  • Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations when available.

Public PoC references