CVE-2024-28101: Apollo router Apollo Router's Compressed Payloads Do Vulnerability

HIGH
Advisory Identifier: GHSA-cgqf-3cq5-wvcj
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CVSS 7.5
CWE-409
Published
Advisory Summary

CVE-2024-28101 is a HIGH (CVSS 7.5) apollo router's compressed payloads do vulnerability (CWE-409: Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)) affecting Apollo router libraries in the crates.io ecosystem. The issue involves apollo router's compressed payloads do not respect http payload limits. Remediation is available by upgrading affected packages to version 1.40.2.

CVE-2024-28101 at a Glance

CVE Identifier CVE-2024-28101
GHSA Identifier GHSA-cgqf-3cq5-wvcj
Severity HIGH
CVSS v3.1 Base Score 7.5
CWE Classification CWE-409: Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)
Affected Product Apollo router
Package Ecosystem crates.io
Published Date
Last Updated

Security Impact

CVSS: 7.5

The security impact metrics below are parsed directly from the CVSS v3.1 vector string (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Attack Vector Network (AV:N)
Attack Complexity Low (AC:L)
Privileges Required None (PR:N)
User Interaction None (UI:N)
Scope Unchanged (S:U)
Confidentiality None (C:N)
Integrity None (I:N)
Availability High (A:H)

How to Fix CVE-2024-28101

To remediate this vulnerability, upgrade all affected Apollo router dependencies to a patched release. Both direct and transitive dependencies should be checked, as frameworks or security libraries may pull in vulnerable versions transitively.

apollo-router fixed: 1.40.2 
Upgrade apollo-router to 1.40.2
Verify Direct and Transitive Dependencies

Run the following command in your project directory to verify that all resolved dependencies use the patched release: 

inspect dependencies for apollo-router

How to Check if You Are Affected

To determine whether your application is affected by CVE-2024-28101, inspect your project dependencies for Apollo router:

inspect dependencies for apollo-router

Analyze the terminal output to locate any version of Apollo router in your dependency tree. If any resolved version matches the vulnerable ranges listed in the table below (for example, versions earlier than 1.40.2), your application is affected.

Note: Verify declared build manifests and deployed runtime container environments.

Technical Details

Vulnerability Mechanism & Technical Analysis

This vulnerability is classified under CWE-409: Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification), where the product does not handle or incorrectly handles a compressed input with a very high compression ratio that produces a large output. In Apollo router, software state validation or input boundaries are circumvented during processing. Review the official source advisory statement below for specific affected components, classes, and reproduction details.

Source Advisory Statement

### Impact The Apollo Router is a configurable, high-performance graph router written in Rust to run a federated supergraph that uses Apollo Federation. Affected versions are subject to a Denial-of-Service (DoS) type vulnerability. When receiving compressed HTTP payloads, affected versions of the Router evaluate the `limits.http_max_request_bytes` configuration option after the entirety of the compressed payload is decompressed. If affected versions of the Router receive highly compressed payloads, this could result in significant memory consumption while the compressed payload is expanded. ### Patches Router version 1.40.2 has a fix for the vulnerability. ### Workarounds If you are unable to upgrade, you may be able to implement mitigations at proxies or load balancers positioned in front of your Router fleet (e.g. Nginx, HAProxy, or cloud-native WAF services) by creating limits on HTTP body upload size.

CVE-2024-28101 Affected Apollo router Versions

1 component(s)
Fixed Versions:
1.40.2
Product / Package Ecosystem Affected Versions Fixed Version
apollo-router
 crates.io
≥ 0.9.5
< 1.40.2
1.40.2

References

GitHub Advisory / Wiki ADVISORY
https://github.com/apollographql/router/security/advisories/GHSA-cgqf-3cq5-wvcj
Security Fix Commit FIX COMMIT
https://github.com/apollographql/router/commit/9e9527c73c8f34fc8438b09066163cd42520f413
Apollo router Source Repository REPOSITORY
https://github.com/apollographql/router

Frequently Asked Questions

What is CVE-2024-28101?
CVE-2024-28101 is a security vulnerability in Apollo router involving Apollo Router's Compressed Payloads do not respect HTTP Payload Limits under CWE-409: Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification).
Which Apollo router versions are affected?
Affected versions include releases prior to 1.40.2 across affected packages: apollo-router.
What version fixes CVE-2024-28101?
Upgrading to 1.40.2 (or the latest patched release for your respective branch) resolves the vulnerability.
Is apollo-router affected?
Yes, apollo-router is affected in releases prior to 1.40.2. Upgrade your dependency to 1.40.2 or later.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2024-28101?
CVE-2024-28101 has a CVSS v3.1 base score of 7.5 (HIGH) with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.
What CWE is associated with CVE-2024-28101?
CVE-2024-28101 is classified under CWE-409: Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification) (The product does not handle or incorrectly handles a compressed input with a very high compression ratio that produces a large output.).
How can I check crates.io dependencies for CVE-2024-28101?
Run the dependency tree command: 'inspect dependencies for apollo-router'. This command lists direct and transitive dependencies in your build configuration so you can verify if a vulnerable version is resolved.
Machine-readable OSV JSON OSV v1.5 Schema
Normalized schema output
View Raw JSON 
{
  "schema_version" : "1.4.0",
  "id" : "GHSA-cgqf-3cq5-wvcj",
  "modified" : "2026-02-17T19:37:19Z",
  "published" : "2024-03-06T18:24:17Z",
  "aliases" : [ "CVE-2024-28101" ],
  "summary" : "Apollo Router's Compressed Payloads do not respect HTTP Payload Limits",
  "details" : "### Impact\nThe Apollo Router is a configurable, high-performance graph router written in Rust to run a federated supergraph that uses Apollo Federation. Affected versions are subject to a Denial-of-Service (DoS) type vulnerability. When receiving compressed HTTP payloads, affected versions of the Router evaluate the `limits.http_max_request_bytes` configuration option after the entirety of the compressed payload is decompressed. If affected versions of the Router receive highly compressed payloads, this could result in significant memory consumption while the compressed payload is expanded. \n\n### Patches\nRouter version 1.40.2 has a fix for the vulnerability.\n\n### Workarounds\nIf you are unable to upgrade, you may be able to implement mitigations at proxies or load balancers positioned in front of your Router fleet (e.g. Nginx, HAProxy, or cloud-native WAF services) by creating limits on HTTP body upload size.",
  "severity" : [ {
    "type" : "CVSS_V3",
    "score" : "CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H"
  } ],
  "affected" : [ {
    "package" : {
      "ecosystem" : "crates.io",
      "name" : "apollo-router"
    },
    "ranges" : [ {
      "type" : "ECOSYSTEM",
      "events" : [ {
        "introduced" : "0.9.5"
      }, {
        "fixed" : "1.40.2"
      } ]
    } ]
  } ],
  "references" : [ {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/apollographql/router/security/advisories/GHSA-cgqf-3cq5-wvcj"
  }, {
    "type" : "WEB",
    "url" : "https://github.com/apollographql/router/commit/9e9527c73c8f34fc8438b09066163cd42520f413"
  }, {
    "type" : "PACKAGE",
    "url" : "https://github.com/apollographql/router"
  } ],
  "database_specific" : {
    "cwe_ids" : [ "CWE-409" ],
    "severity" : "HIGH",
    "github_reviewed" : true,
    "github_reviewed_at" : "2024-03-06T18:24:17Z",
    "nvd_published_at" : "2024-03-21T02:52:23Z"
  }
}