Summary
HTTPX2: Streaming response decompression does not bound peak memory (decompression amplification)
When decoding a compressed response body (gzip, deflate, br, or zstd), HTTPX2 fully decompressed each network read before yielding content to the application. A small compressed input could therefore cause a large intermediate memory allocation, even when the application streamed the response to keep memory usage bounded.
Details
HTTPX2's default transport reads the socket in pieces of up to 64 KiB. Before 2.12.0, each piece was inflated completely into one intermediate allocation before any decompressed bytes were yielded.
At DEFLATE's maximum compression ratio of roughly 1032:1, a 64 KiB compressed chunk can expand to about 64 MiB in one allocation. Brotli and Zstandard responses can cause similarly large amplification. Streaming the response did not prevent these transient allocations.
Mitigation
Upgrade to HTTPX2 2.12.0 or later. Patched versions decompress responses incrementally with bounded intermediate buffers, including responses with multiple content encodings.
Impact
Applications that fetch resources from untrusted or attacker-influenced servers - such as webhook receivers, link unfurlers, crawlers, SSRF-reachable fetchers, and redirect followers - can experience memory pressure or out-of-memory termination when processing a malicious compressed response. No authentication or user interaction is required beyond issuing a request to the server.
CVE-2026-84382 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (2.12.0); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
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.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2026-84382? CVE-2026-84382 is a high-severity security vulnerability in httpx2 (pip), affecting versions < 2.12.0. It is fixed in 2.12.0.
- How severe is CVE-2026-84382? CVE-2026-84382 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which versions of httpx2 are affected by CVE-2026-84382? httpx2 (pip) versions < 2.12.0 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-84382? Yes. CVE-2026-84382 is fixed in 2.12.0. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2026-84382 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2026-84382 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-2026-84382 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-2026-84382? Upgrade
httpx2to 2.12.0 or later.