CVE-2021-39176

HIGH7.5EPSS 0.61%

Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime in detect-character-encoding

Published: 9/1/2021Modified: 3/13/2026
Also known as:GHSA-5rwj-j5m3-3chj

Description

### Impact In detect-character-encoding v0.3.0 and earlier, allocated memory is not released. ### Patches The problem has been patched in [detect-character-encoding v0.3.1](https://github.com/sonicdoe/detect-character-encoding/releases/tag/v0.3.1). ### CVSS score [CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/RL:O/RC:C](https://www.first.org/cvss/calculator/3.1#CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H/RL:O/RC:C) Base Score: 7.5 (High) Temporal Score: 7.2 (High) Since detect-character-encoding is a library, the scoring is based on the “[reasonable worst-case implementation scenario](https://www.first.org/cvss/v3.1/user-guide#3-7-Scoring-Vulnerabilities-in-Software-Libraries-and-Similar)”, namely, using detect-character-encoding in a program accessible over the internet which becomes unavailable when running out of memory. Depending on your specific implementation, the vulnerability’s severity in your program may be different. ### Proof of concept ```js const express = require("express"); const detectCharacterEncoding = require("detect-character-encoding"); const app = express(); app.get("/", (req, res) => { detectCharacterEncoding(Buffer.from("foo")); res.end(); }); app.listen(3000); ``` `hey -n 1000000 http://localhost:3000` ([`hey`](https://github.com/rakyll/hey)) causes the Node.js process to consume more and more memory. ### References - https://github.com/sonicdoe/detect-character-encoding/commit/d44356927b92e3b13e178071bf6d7c671766f588 - https://github.com/sonicdoe/detect-character-encoding/pull/6

Affected packages (1)

CVSS scores

SourceVersionSeverityVector
osvCVSS 3.1HIGH7.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References (6)