What happened
vLLM versions before 0.29.0 contain a denial-of-service vulnerability in the cache_salt parameter accepted on OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic API endpoints, which lacks maximum length validation and is processed on the single EngineCore scheduler thread. Unauthenticated attackers can send HTTP requests with multi-hundred-megabyte salt values that trigger expensive pickle serialization and SHA-256 hashing, stalling the scheduler thread and denying service to all concurrent requests.
Affected versions
vllm: before 0.29.0 (semver) 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.
Public PoC references
No public PoC reference has passed the current publication threshold.