What happened
Authlib is a Python library which builds OAuth and OpenID Connect servers. Prior to version 1.6.5, Authlib’s JWE zip=DEF path performs unbounded DEFLATE decompression. A very small ciphertext can expand into tens or hundreds of megabytes on decrypt, allowing an attacker who can supply decryptable tokens to exhaust memory and CPU and cause denial of service. This issue has been patched in version 1.6.5. Workarounds for this issue involve rejecting or stripping zip=DEF for inbound JWEs at the application boundary, forking and add a bounded decompression guard via decompressobj().decompress(data, MAX_SIZE)) and returning an error when output exceeds a safe limit, or enforcing strict maximum token sizes and fail fast on oversized inputs; combine with rate limiting.
Affected versions
authlib: < 1.6.5 Fixed: See vendor advisory.
Why it matters
Review the vendor advisory and exposure of the affected product to determine operational impact.
Detection & mitigation
- Apply vendor-provided updates or mitigations.
- Review affected product exposure and access logs.