A critical security vulnerability has been discovered in Apache bRPC that allows attackers to remotely crash services through network-based denial of service attacks.
The vulnerability, designated as CVE-2025-54472, affects all versions of Apache bRPC prior to 1.14.1 and stems from improper memory allocation handling in the Redis protocol parser component.
Vulnerability Details and Impact
The newly disclosed vulnerability centers on unlimited memory allocation within Apache bRPC’s Redis protocol parser, creating a significant security risk for organizations utilizing this high-performance RPC framework.
Security researcher Tyler Zars discovered and reported this flaw, which has been classified with “important” severity by the Apache Security Team.
The vulnerability affects deployments across all platforms where Apache bRPC is implemented, making it a widespread concern for the open-source community.
| Field | Details |
| CVE ID | CVE-2025-54472 |
| Title | Apache bRPC: Redis Parser Remote Denial of Service |
| Severity | Important |
| Affected Versions | Apache bRPC before 1.14.1 |
| Attack Vector | Network |
| Impact | Denial of Service |
The fundamental issue lies in how the bRPC Redis protocol parser processes network data. When parsing Redis protocol messages, the system allocates memory for arrays or strings based on integer values received directly from network communications.
Malicious actors can exploit this behavior by crafting specially designed data packets containing extremely large integer values, forcing the system to attempt massive memory allocations that ultimately result in bad allocation errors and service crashes.
The vulnerability’s technical foundation reveals a concerning pattern in input validation practices. The bRPC Redis parser reads integer values from incoming network traffic and uses these values to determine memory allocation sizes without implementing adequate bounds checking.
When attackers transmit packets containing oversized integers, the parser attempts to allocate corresponding amounts of memory, leading to system resource exhaustion and service termination.
Particularly troubling is the discovery that Apache bRPC version 1.14.0, which was intended to address this issue through memory allocation limitations, remains vulnerable due to implementation flaws.
The limitation checking code contains vulnerabilities to integer overflow attacks, allowing sophisticated attackers to bypass the intended protections.
This means that even organizations that updated to version 1.14.0 believing they had resolved the security issue remain at risk, though the specific integer ranges that trigger the vulnerability differ between version 1.14.0 and earlier releases.
Organizations face exposure in two primary scenarios: when deploying bRPC as a Redis server providing network services to untrusted clients, or when using bRPC as a Redis client connecting to potentially compromised Redis services.
Apache developers have released two remediation approaches for affected organizations. The primary recommendation involves upgrading to Apache bRPC version 1.14.1, which implements proper bounds checking and resolves the underlying memory allocation vulnerabilities.
Alternatively, organizations can manually apply the security patch available through GitHub pull request #3050.
The implemented fix establishes a default maximum memory allocation limit of 64MB per operation within the Redis parser.
Organizations processing Redis requests or responses exceeding this threshold should modify the redis_max_allocation_size flag to accommodate their specific requirements while maintaining security protections.
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