(www.aikido.dev)
It's so meaningless, broad and undescriptive of the actual issue. No it probably doesn't affect an HTTP server with nothing else behind it, so why is HTTP being blasted?
You might as well call it Exploit Pro Max...
(Actually you eat cake and drink coffee on a funeral, but it's still called like that in some parts of Austria.)
AI isn't being asked to review the title, and it doesn't have experience or think, so of course it's not going to flag it.
No human reviews anything anymore so of course they aren't going to catch it.
Edit: AI for as good as it is at "writing" is terrible at writing and particularly at naming things. I had an AI name a client OpenAICompatibleEmbeddingClient. "Brooooo.. I think "compatible" is implied, who names stuff like that?!"
- https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/openai-compat
I've seen that used as a description for 2years or so.
Which they will happily do if you ask them "why" they did something. 100% they will give their best "well actually" impression.
Now, whether it's warranted or not, that's another matter, but they know how to appeal for maximum awareness/interaction.
1. See a vuln domain reported, clone the site. 2. Wait for it to expire and snag it. 3. Republish the site with malware 4. Watch people dither about domain names and stuff instead of taking time to fix things.
GitHub.io domains, workers.dev domains, etc are all free domains.
Clever use and abuse of some startups can get you a free domain with a signup package that you can subsequently transfer out, but those are harder to find these days.
Seriously, the bad guys figure this out all the time.
> but it wasn't recognized as a security issue at the time and no release shipped with the fix until now
I'm always getting my dangerous RCE bugs mixed up with my harmless RCE bugs.
I'm curious how this was reported and fixed back in Feb but nobody recognized the importance. A case of AI automation and nobody at the wheel?
In any case all this sensationalism is starting to get annoying. Patch your stuff and move on.
Edit: actually, between all the sensationalism, its hard to tell from the article how many of these actually support brotli compressed request bodies in common configs vs some other use of brotli (which is bad but nowhere near as critical)
So as a hotfix I block this on my reverse proxy.
It seems like node supports it with body parser enabled.
But im having trouble finding any docs suggesting anything else supports it on inbound requests.
Obviously there are other scenarios where it is exploitable, but it is a much less severe vuln if the attacker must first force the program to make an outbound request to a server of its chosing rather than just connect to a vulnerable server.
I hope my assets are not connecting to malicious servers, otherwise yes, I have a problem.
DotNet, however, has it's own C# Brotli implementation.
Investigate yourself. Read the documentation. Grep for brotli in the source. Don't blindly trust a chat bot when it says it "might happen in certain configurations".
Unfortunately that means understanding and limiting dependencies of developers... Yea, good luck.
My popcorn is ready. My servers are not.
And don't worry about my stripes, I'm mostly talking about my hobby self-hosted apps. If anything, should someone hack them I'll have a funny article to post on my blog. Professionally, I do things differently.
As always, the easiest way to manage this is to have as few dependencies as possible. If you have a lockfile with thousands of entries, you won't be able to go through them and decide which upgrades are legitimate urgent security updates and which can wait. If you have 10? You'll manage.
Maybe an LLM just happened to do one of those "while I'm here" fixes in Feb and because nobody reviews anything anymore..
"Fixed reading too many bytes."
LGTM!
Edit: I was close! "Detect and report invalid stream earlier." Could have been a person.
Who turned on hard mode this week?
Apache and nginx don't handle brotli out of the box.
Every time you add something you lose something...
> Security notice: Upgrade certifi, pip, and uv in response to CA certificate incident
Blimey PIP is affected? That's bad. I feel like that should have been bigger news?
The above is incorrect per the Python forum discussion (https://discuss.python.org/t/information-for-python-users-re...). Pip will trust certificates from both sources.
Users of uv who have already updated their system certificates can use:
UV_SYSTEM_CERTS=true uv self updateSo strictly we have to burn everything python to the ground and reinstall entirely.
Even in today's LLM-addled world, I still think it's a better tradeoff for smaller system/site operators. Get the distro-level testing and regular auto-patching, rather than telling yourself it is a good idea to "freeze" your python world at the pace of your slowest app/system integrator.
It's the same reason I think docker is an anti-pattern for these small groups. You really cannot safely use these strategies to bake an image and divorce yourself from the maintained distro layer unless you are going to adopt CI/CD that does the same thing. Keep tracking all these patches to the entire runtime with all the dependencies, rebuild, re-test, and redeploy.
It's total cargo culting to adopt the freeze/image techniques and just abandon apps in place as if that is robust!
But, it's also more than just automatically updating everything. There is an editorial aspect to distro management to help secure the supply chain to your app. Most smaller orgs cannot feasibly do this as well as the regular linux distro maintainers. Some large orgs can probably do it better, but that doesn't matter if you aren't doing it large org style with dedicated security folks tracking all this against well-developed policies and procedures...
They have a point. The distro is only carrying a small fraction of what's available on PyPI, and will have out-of-date versions that may lack security patches (and for projects like yt-dlp, are highly unlikely to work at all). Realistically they aren't applying security backports; there would rarely be a reason not to just use the new version, and the resources just aren't there for that scale of patching anyway.
Further, pip will interfere with your system package manager's tracking of the system environment (PEP 668), and any attempt you make to install from .deb/.rpm/etc. to a virtual environment is a hack at best. Maybe you could symlink individual package folders to the system environment while installing a superset, but ugh. Oh, and if you're a developer (like most "Python die-hards" are) then this isn't very helpful, as you aren't testing the installation of your package the way that your users will do it.
You do need to be careful about creating new venvs with the old version of pip bundled in ensurepip in older Python releases. `uv` kindly patches that to newest pip, but not every Python binary does.
python -m pip install "pip @ https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3f/06/3e4420302363fbb71be3c7f35ce042f54bfca330e3e66b3a2e3c4cca579f/pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl#sha256=fd7f4dfa8190e014013b9f08f3e973f4e4c26ffd179a204895533a7254813a70"
PIP_USE_DEPRECATED=legacy-certs PIP_CERT=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt python -m pip install --upgrade "pip>=26.2.2"
* Update system certificates
* Locate that pip and directly invoke it to self-update with hash pinning, rather than going through pipx
* Fix a few stray venvs that contained their own pip
* Use the fixed pipx to update uv (although I guess the uv self-update should work even for a pipx-installed copy?)
The legacy-certs hint is neat. I did it the first way but would rather not have since I'm on Mint.
$ python -m pip --no-cache install "pip @ https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3f/06/3e4420302363fbb71be3c7f35ce042f54bfca330e3e66b3a2e3c4cca579f/pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl#sha256=fd7f4dfa8190e014013b9f08f3e973f4e4c26ffd179a204895533a7254813a70"
Collecting pip @ https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3f/06/3e4420302363fbb71be3c7f35ce042f54bfca330e3e66b3a2e3c4cca579f/pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl#sha256=fd7f4dfa8190e014013b9f08f3e973f4e4c26ffd179a204895533a7254813a70
Downloading pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl (1.8 MB)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1.8/1.8 MB 570.0 MB/s 0:00:00
ERROR: THESE PACKAGES DO NOT MATCH THE HASHES FROM THE REQUIREMENTS FILE. If you have updated the package versions, please update the hashes. Otherwise, examine the package contents carefully; someone may have tampered with them.
pip @ https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3f/06/3e4420302363fbb71be3c7f35ce042f54bfca330e3e66b3a2e3c4cca579f/pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl#sha256=fd7f4dfa8190e014013b9f08f3e973f4e4c26ffd179a204895533a7254813a70 from https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/3f/06/3e4420302363fbb71be3c7f35ce042f54bfca330e3e66b3a2e3c4cca579f/pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl#sha256=fd7f4dfa8190e014013b9f08f3e973f4e4c26ffd179a204895533a7254813a70:
Expected sha256 fd7f4dfa8190e014013b9f08f3e973f4e4c26ffd179a204895533a7254813a70
Got 8c448177668e735cdde7d6178694b90c084ba18559348cc394c4b1546eeec89c
$ PIP_USE_DEPRECATED=legacy-certs PIP_CERT=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt python -m pip install --no-cache --upgrade "pip>=26.2.2"
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=4, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1082)'))': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=3, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1082)'))': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=2, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1082)'))': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=1, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1082)'))': /simple/pip/
WARNING: Retrying (Retry(total=0, connect=None, read=None, redirect=None, status=None)) after connection broken by 'SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1082)'))': /simple/pip/
Could not fetch URL https://pypi.org/simple/pip/: There was a problem confirming the ssl certificate: [SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1082) - skipping
ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pip>=26.2.2 (from versions: none)
ERROR: No matching distribution found for pip>=26.2.2
$ python -m pip --no-cache install 'pip>=26.2.2'
Collecting pip>=26.2.2
Downloading pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl.metadata (4.6 kB)
Downloading pip-26.2.2-py3-none-any.whl (1.8 MB)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1.8/1.8 MB 775.3 MB/s 0:00:00
Installing collected packages: pip
Attempting uninstall: pip
Found existing installation: pip 26.2.1
Uninstalling pip-26.2.1:
Successfully uninstalled pip-26.2.1
Successfully installed pip-26.2.2
$ cat venv/lib/python3.14/site-packages/sni_proxy_sentinel.txt
SNI proxy lab sentinel. This file is inert.This is not true; pip supports hash pinning, so an attacker would have to be able to defeat SHA256 as well (or compromise both the official Python discussion forum and PyPI itself, so as to forged the published hash). Other hashes can also be used. Instructions are provided on the Python discussion forum to self-upgrade pip with hash pinning: https://discuss.python.org/t/information-for-python-users-re...
It IS a mess and it's causing problems again and again in real life. And it is particularly bad with Python. I don't see why this should not be pointed out.
- git
- Sublime text
- VS studio
- CUDA
- .NET
- inkscape
- AzureTools
Browsers were patched back in March, but if you can get anything else that is unpatched to decode br, and most HTTP clients do by default, and you’ve figured out the right payload (yes not easy, but still), isn’t this, well, really bad? Like Heartbleed big?
also affects codex (gui), which ships its own git, could be more of a problem there, when the LLMs get quirky at night. still unlikely to be a problem though.
speaking of, update codex (and wipe its cache at ~/.cache/codex-runtimes), ships its own node. update python.
stuff like wireshark and imhex remain vulnerable, even on their latest repo commits, which may or may not be spicy.
also Microsoft 365 Copilot still has its own unpatched brotlidec.dll from Oct 7, if anyone uses that. no fix available for that one afaik, not sure about how it can be made to access the vulnerable decoder.
put it in the network path, it can become an RCE.
put it in a privileged context, it can become privilege escalation.
put it in a hardened environment, it can become completely inert.
in no sane perspective is me listing off the applications shipping with vulnerable versions of this codec off-topic. just because the article is hellbent on portraying this as some sort of second php2shell, the actual underlying issue here is still CVE-2026-111497.
"By the end of 2017, all modern browsers supported Brotli, and server support for it started to become more widespread."
For www users, all that data collection, surveillance and ad services traffic to enrich so-called "tech" companies acting as intermediaries, can make the www exceedingly slow
The way to "make the web faster" (or less inefficient) is to get rid of that needless traffic, and the ads it supports
SPDY,^1 HTTP/2 Server Push,^2 HTTP/3 QPACK,^3 brotli, .... make www users ("ad targets" to Google) uninformed, nonconsenting subjects in Google's failed experiments
The www already works just fine for its intended purpose (_not_ data collection, surveillance and ad services)
1. "As of 2021, no major browsers supported SPDY" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPDY
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2_Server_Push
3. https://foxio.io/blog/header-accordions-qpack-amplification-...
Most of the discussion here is about vulnerabilities in servers, but it looks like its mostly a client problem.
Is there a way to turn brotli off?
Going back to your point, if we kept things simple we would be a lot more secure.
Every user is different
For me I'm a text-only user not interested in graphics
I do not use a so-called "modern" browser to make HTTP requests
I don't request brotli-compressed content/resources^1
Normally I don't send an Accept-Encoding header
Almost always servers to which I connect^2 will return uncompressed text, which is what I want. No Accept-Encoding header needed
Occasionally servers will send gzip-compressed text by default and will ignore "Accept-Encoding: identity"
However the popular so-called "modern" browsers will send an Accept-Encoding header whose value includes brotli (br) by default
Unsuspecting www users are consequently opted in to Google's brotli experiment. Me, I opt out
1. I use a text-only browser (1.3MB static binary) to read HTML. I compile it without brotli support
2. Other users may connect to different servers. Preferences vary from user to user
I think Mozilla got it right when they abandoned the effort to rewrite the entire browser in Rust and instead focused on analysis of which modules needed priority rewrites. If a module has historically had zero memory-related bugs, then there are other higher priority things to spend time on.
That said, Google Project Zero should have had Brotli on their radar. Hopefully they still have people and resources.
However, why not switch to the Rust lib when it was available? I suppose people at Dropbox are now pretty happy they did in 2016: https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/lossless-compression-wit...
It's slower, though. Too high a price to pay for safety it seems.
There is a cost to conversion.
Dropbox switched to it a decade ago, so it's probably quite product-ready.
How many clients only accept brotli?
So say you run a SaaS that allows for something like letting people set their Avatar from an image URL which gets downloaded.
As an attacker I setup a new server that serves only brotli and then submit that URL to the SaaS.
That's a clever example, but why would you do that? The avatar should be a static resource. As such, I'd only provide an upload file dialog.
Quit being overly pedantic about how contrived the example is and struggle with the underlying fact that the compression type is negotiated between the client and server. If the compression happens on the HTTP request (as some of the comments here suggest), then the server must use that compression method or it fails to read the body of the request.
That's basically one of the core ingredients of security. Build a threat model.
I even read the patch for the C code (patch which, btw, seems a bit hacky to me with isSafe? methods added and whatnots but YMMV: now I understand things had to be patched in a hurry but this patch really looks like "lipstick on a buffer overflowing C pig" to me).
What's the link between Python / Node / C++ / libbrotli / Envoy / Bun: are those some all using the same C brotli encoder/decoder?
Can someone who knows more explain why all those are vulnerable?
> As for unaffected software, Apache’s standard mod_brotli does not decode Brotli
Because this one only encodes and doesn't decode and the bug is in the decoder? (for I take it mod_brotli, with such a name, still does something brotli related and isn't, say, a TOTP token generator nor a SAT solver?).
I mean overall, sheesh: could we get better explanation / better writeups when such big fuckups happen?
Google provides the Brotli implementation. Package maintainers slurp that up and create ie libbrotli-dev. When you compile node it uses that for brotli support.
Yes, I know HTTP 2 and 3 and SSE are attempts to make it faster and more parallel, but its still slow. Its slow because its unidirectional with a full round trip and by default its a new socket per each message. Yes, I know the real reason HTTP became and remains popular is because its sessionless... in theory. Still, there are better options available. You can do so much more with a full duplex channel.
If you want something else you can take your pick based on need from dozens of other options
SMTP is too chatty - it uses too many round trips for efficient transfer across the internet. It can take several seconds just to get to the point of sending the email data. It also duplicates information between the SMTP envelope and the email body which creates vulnerabilities when they don't match.
For APIs that don't have to work in a browser I suggest JSON lines over TCP, or over TLS.
Multiplexing is the default in HTTP/2 and 3. So you're still wrong.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36517829/what-does-multi...
So, for the sake of argument let’s say I am completely wrong, MDN is wrong, all of Stack Overflow is also wrong. Even still HTTP is slow. Slow as shit. Imagine trying to do a MS Teams call with 50+ participants with cameras on. It would be slow as shit for just a one-on-one call. A call with 50+ people would be ridiculously slower and would likely result in a crash from memory exhaustion.
I was also not talking about HTTP2 or 3. I was very clear about that. Reading is hard. HTTP is used in many different contexts outside the browser where 1.1 continues to dominate.
The primary reason developers want to keep HTTP around is familiarity and comfort. HTTP is great when you don’t compare to anything else or do any kind of performance tuning.