Summary
Affected usages
Applications and libraries using urllib3 version 2.5.0 and earlier to stream large compressed responses or content from untrusted sources.
stream(), read(amt=256), read1(amt=256), read_chunked(amt=256), readinto(b) are examples of urllib3.HTTPResponse method calls using the affected logic unless decoding is disabled explicitly.
Credits
The issue was reported by @Cycloctane.
Supplemental information was provided by @stamparm during a security audit performed by 7ASecurity and facilitated by OSTIF.
Impact
urllib3's streaming API is designed for the efficient handling of large HTTP responses by reading the content in chunks, rather than loading the entire response body into memory at once.
When streaming a compressed response, urllib3 can perform decoding or decompression based on the HTTP Content-Encoding header (e.g., gzip, deflate, br, or zstd). The library must read compressed data from the network and decompress it until the requested chunk size is met. Any resulting decompressed data that exceeds the requested amount is held in an internal buffer for the next read operation.
The decompression logic could cause urllib3 to fully decode a small amount of highly compressed data in a single operation. This can result in excessive resource consumption (high CPU usage and massive memory allocation for the decompressed data; CWE-409) on the client side, even if the application only requested a small chunk of data.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
Remediation advice
Upgrade to at least urllib3 v2.6.0 in which the library avoids decompressing data that exceeds the requested amount.
If your environment contains a package facilitating the Brotli encoding, upgrade to at least Brotli 1.2.0 or brotlicffi 1.2.0.0 too. These versions are enforced by the urllib3[brotli] extra in the patched versions of urllib3.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2025-66471? CVE-2025-66471 is a high-severity security vulnerability in urllib3 (pip), affecting versions >= 1.0, < 2.6.0. It is fixed in 2.6.0.
- Which versions of urllib3 are affected by CVE-2025-66471? urllib3 (pip) versions >= 1.0, < 2.6.0 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2025-66471? Yes. CVE-2025-66471 is fixed in 2.6.0. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2025-66471 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2025-66471 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2025-66471 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2025-66471? Upgrade
urllib3to 2.6.0 or later.