Vulnerability record · CVE-2016-10518 · published 31 May 2018
CVE-2016-10518: Ws project ws memory buffer overflow vulnerability
WWs Project · Ws
A vulnerability was found in the ping functionality of the ws module before 1.0.0 which allowed clients to allocate memory by sending a ping frame. The ping functionality by default responds with a pong frame and the previously given payload of the ping frame. This is exactly what you expect, but internally ws always transforms all data that we need to send to a Buffer instance and that is where the vulnerability existed. ws didn't do any checks for the type of data it was sending. With buffers in node when you allocate it when a number instead of a string it will allocate the amount of bytes.
Description
A vulnerability was found in the ping functionality of the ws module before 1.0.0 which allowed clients to allocate memory by sending a ping frame. The ping functionality by default responds with a pong frame and the previously given payload of the ping frame. This is exactly what you expect, but internally ws always transforms all data that we need to send to a Buffer instance and that is where the vulnerability existed. ws didn't do any checks for the type of data it was sending. With buffers in node when you allocate it when a number instead of a string it will allocate the amount of bytes.
CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Affected products
1 vulnerable configurations from NVD's CPE data, grouped by vendor and product.
References
| Link | Tags |
|---|---|
| https://gist.github.com/c0nrad/e92005446c480707a74a | PatchThird Party Advisory |
| https://github.com/websockets/ws/releases/tag/1.0.1 | Release NotesThird Party Advisory |
| https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/67 | Third Party Advisory |
| https://gist.github.com/c0nrad/e92005446c480707a74a | PatchThird Party Advisory |
| https://github.com/websockets/ws/releases/tag/1.0.1 | Release NotesThird Party Advisory |
| https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/67 | Third Party Advisory |
Track CVE-2016-10518 inside VULONE
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Related vulnerabilities
Same products first, then exploited flaws of the same weakness class.
Source: NIST National Vulnerability Database (record CVE-2016-10518), CISA KEV, FIRST EPSS (scores of 2026-09-27). This page is refreshed as NVD updates the record.
