Memory Leak in TinyWeb HTTP Parser

Executive Summary

TinyWeb through 0.0.8 has a memory leak vulnerability where unauthenticated attackers can send ordinary HTTP requests to exhaust available memory. Each request causes memory allocations for objects like Url and HttpHeaders that are never freed due to missing destructors and unreachable delete calls. This leads to a steady increase in worker process memory usage by about 20 to 28 kB per request until the process crashes.

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Detection Guidance

Monitor memory usage of the TinyWeb process over time. Use commands like 'top -p <PID>' or 'htop' to observe increasing memory consumption per request. Check for worker process crashes after sustained HTTP traffic. Inspect network traffic for unusual request patterns targeting port 9090.

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Impact Analysis

This vulnerability can cause denial-of-service conditions by consuming all available memory on the server. It requires no authentication or special payloads, making it easy to exploit by sending a continuous stream of requests. The impact includes degraded performance, potential crashes, and downtime for services relying on TinyWeb.

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Compliance Impact

This vulnerability causes memory exhaustion leading to denial of service, which could disrupt services handling sensitive data. For GDPR, this may impact availability of personal data processing systems. For HIPAA, it could affect availability of systems storing protected health information. Both regulations require maintaining service availability for compliance.

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Mitigation Strategies

Immediately restrict access to TinyWeb by blocking port 9090 at the firewall. Upgrade to a patched version if available. If no patch exists, consider replacing TinyWeb with a different web server. Monitor memory usage closely until mitigation is complete.

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