CVE-2025-54121: DoS (CVSS 5.3)

Description

Starlette is a lightweight ASGI (Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface) framework/toolkit, designed for building async web services in Python. In versions 0.47.1 and below, when parsing a multi-part form with large files (greater than the default max spool size) starlette will block the main thread to roll the file over to disk. This blocks the event thread which means the application can't accept new connections. The UploadFile code has a minor bug where instead of just checking for self._in_memory, the logic should also check if the additional bytes will cause a rollover. The vulnerability is fixed in version 0.47.2.

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CVSS v3.1 Score

5.3

MEDIUM

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

Weakness Type (CWE)

CWE-770 CWE-770

References

Other References

https://github.com/encode/starlette/blob/fa5355442753f794965ae1af0f87f9fec1b9a3de/starlette/datastructures.py#L436C5-L447C14 https://github.com/encode/starlette/commit/9f7ec2eb512fcc3fe90b43cb9dd9e1d08696bec1 https://github.com/encode/starlette/discussions/2927#discussioncomment-13721403 https://github.com/encode/starlette/security/advisories/GHSA-2c2j-9gv5-cj73

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2025-54121? +

Starlette is a lightweight ASGI (Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface) framework/toolkit, designed for building async web services in Python. In versions 0.47.1 and below, when parsing a multi-part form with large files (greater than the default max spool size) starlette will block the main thread to roll the file over to disk. This blocks the event thread which means the application can't accept new connections. The UploadFile code has a minor bug where instead of just checking for self._in_memory, the logic should also check if the additional bytes will cause a rollover. The vulnerability is fixed in version 0.47.2. It has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 5.3 (MEDIUM).

How severe is CVE-2025-54121? +

CVE-2025-54121 has a CVSS v3.1 score of 5.3 out of 10, rated MEDIUM. This is a medium-severity vulnerability that should be remediated as part of regular maintenance.

How do I check if I'm vulnerable to CVE-2025-54121? +

You can use Secably's free Website Scanner to check your website for known vulnerabilities. For infrastructure scanning, use the Port Scanner to identify exposed services that may be affected. Check the vendor advisories linked above for specific patch and version information.

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