GHSA-6pr9-rp53-2pmc: vLLM: OOM Denial of Service via Audio Decompression Bomb
Summary
vLLM's /v1/audio/transcriptions endpoint limits compressed upload size but not decoded PCM output. A 25MB OPUS file expands to ~14.9GB of float32 PCM at decode time. Tested on vLLM v0.19.0.
Details
SpeechToTextProcessor rejects uploads over VLLM_MAX_AUDIO_CLIP_FILESIZE_MB (default 25MB) based on compressed byte length, but the audio decoder in audio.py accumulates all decoded frames into memory with no size limit before returning:
speech_to_text.py L184-189
if len(audio_data) / 1024 ** 2 > self.max_audio_filesize_mb:
raise VLLMValidationError(...)
y, sr = load_audio(buf, sr=self.asr_config.sample_rate) # decoded size unchecked
audio.py L77-107
chunks: list[npt.NDArray] = []
for frame in container.decode(stream):
chunks.append(frame.to_ndarray())
audio = np.concatenate(chunks, axis=-1).astype(np.float32) # single contiguous allocation
A 25MB OPUS file at 6kbps encodes ~8.7 hours of audio. Decoding produces ~5.7GB of float32 PCM (232x amplification), and np.concatenate then allocates a second contiguous array, bringing peak RSS to ~14.9GB from a single request. SpeechToTextConfig.max_audio_clip_s (default 30s) applies only after the full decode and does not prevent the allocation.
Impact
An unauthenticated attacker can exhaust server memory with a small number of concurrent requests, each a valid upload within the documented size limit. Severity was assessed with reference to prior OOM vulnerability reports in vLLM.
Fix
A fix for this vulnerability was merged here: https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/pull/44970
Details
Original advisory: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-6pr9-rp53-2pmc
Exploitation outlook
EPSS (FIRST.org) estimates each CVE’s probability of exploitation in the next 30 days — here is the CSIRTS.com read on those numbers.
- Low exploitation riskCVE-2026-542330.42% 30-day exploitation probability — currently an unlikely target, but scores change as exploit code circulates. Riskier than 35% of all scored CVEs.
Referenced CVEs
| CVE | CSIRTS overview | External |
|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-54233 | coverage & exploitation status | NVD · CVE.org |
Same CVEs, other sources
How other CERTs, PSIRTs and databases cover the vulnerabilities in this advisory.
- medium[UPDATE] [medium] vllm: Multiple vulnerabilitiescert-bund
More from GitHub Security Advisories
- mediumGHSA-xm43-3m56-w3wf: Ghost: Paid gift memberships obtainable at minimal cost via the donations feature2026-08-04
- mediumGHSA-chgm-3698-jm42: Ghost: Member existence leak via magic link sign-in response2026-08-04
- highGHSA-xpp7-93x6-v29m: XSS in Ghost's ActivityPub client2026-08-04
- mediumGHSA-7mpp-r37j-x5wh: Ghost: Session Fixation in Ghost Admin2026-08-04
- mediumGHSA-cjc9-q5gf-327p: Ghost: Theme Upload Path Traversal2026-08-04