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CVE-2026-85450 – Denial of Service (Resource Exhaustion) – MOOS core-moos MOOSDB HTTP Server through

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Summary

CVE-2026-85450 is a denial-of-service vulnerability in the built-in HTTP server of MOOSDB, part of the MOOS (Mission Oriented Operating Suite) core-moos project, affecting all versions through 10.4.0. The server fails to impose any limits on concurrent connections, request line size, or read timeouts, allowing a remote, unauthenticated attacker to exhaust server threads and memory and render the HTTP interface (and potentially the host) unavailable. The issue is tracked under CWE-770 (Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling) and carries a CVSS v4.0 base score of 8.7 (High); NVD’s CVSS v3.1 vector rates it 7.5 (High).

Technical details

  • Root cause: MOOSDB’s HTTP server (HTTPConnection.cpp) accepts unlimited concurrent client connections, spawning a new thread and file descriptor per connection with no cap and no cleanup until new clients connect. Its ReadLine() function reads incoming data byte-by-byte into an unbounded string buffer, and socket reads block indefinitely, so a client can hold a thread open by sending data slowly or not at all.
  • Trigger conditions: No authentication is required to reach the vulnerable code path — any network client that can open a TCP connection to the MOOSDB HTTP listener can trigger it.
  • Attack vector: Network (AV:N), low attack complexity, no privileges or user interaction required. An attacker opens many concurrent connections (slowloris-style) and/or streams endless header/request-line data on those connections.
  • Impact: Measured proof-of-concept behavior shows that 200 slow-drip connections raised the process from a baseline of ~9 threads/4.6MB to ~210 threads/40.6MB, and a single malicious connection was able to push 106.4MB of data into one unterminated request line within 15 seconds — exhausting server threads and memory and causing denial of service. Impact is limited to availability; there is no confidentiality or integrity impact.

Affected software

  • themoos/core-moos (MOOS / MOOSDB HTTP server) — all versions through 10.4.0

Severity

  • CVSS v4.0: 8.7 (HIGH) — CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
  • CVSS v3.1: 7.5 (HIGH) — CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  • CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling

Mitigation and recommended actions

  • Immediate: As of publication, the fix has not yet been merged into the main core-moos branch; it exists only as a proposed patch (pull request #79, commit dfef92b3bc31886bc47e4d680aef583b78cb8d72). Security teams should track and apply this patch, or upgrade to a release that incorporates it once merged.
  • Workarounds/network mitigations (until patched):
    • Do not expose the MOOSDB HTTP server directly to untrusted networks or the public internet; restrict access via firewall rules, VPN, or network segmentation to trusted hosts only.
    • Where the proposed fix’s configuration options are available, enforce the documented limits: cap concurrent HTTP handlers (MOOS_HTTP_MAX_CONNECTIONS), bound request line/header sizes (MOOS_HTTP_MAX_LINE, MOOS_HTTP_MAX_HEADERS), and enforce read timeouts (MOOS_HTTP_READ_TIMEOUT) to prevent idle/slow clients from holding threads open.
    • Deploy a reverse proxy or load balancer in front of the MOOSDB HTTP interface that enforces connection limits, request timeouts, and header size limits, and monitor for anomalous connection counts or thread/memory growth consistent with slowloris-style attacks.

References

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