Vulnerability · Published Jun 6, 2025 · Assigned by GitHub_M
CVE-2025-47950CoreDNS Vulnerable to DoQ Memory Exhaustion via Stream Amplification
High 7.5
In plain English
A high-severity resource allocation without limits in coredns from coredns. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 1.2% (higher than 68% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.
Official description
CoreDNS is a DNS server that chains plugins. In versions prior to 1.12.2, a Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability exists in the CoreDNS DNS-over-QUIC (DoQ) server implementation. The server previously created a new goroutine for every incoming QUIC stream without imposing any limits on the number of concurrent streams or goroutines. A remote, unauthenticated attacker could open a large number of streams, leading to uncontrolled memory consumption and eventually causing an Out Of Memory (OOM) crash — especially in containerized or memory-constrained environments. The patch in version 1.12.2 introduces two key mitigation mechanisms: `max_streams`, which caps the number of concurrent QUIC streams per connection with a default value of `256`; and `worker_pool_size`, which Introduces a server-wide, bounded worker pool to process incoming streams with a default value of `1024`. This eliminates the 1:1 stream-to-goroutine model and ensures that CoreDNS remains resilient under high concurrency. Some workarounds are available for those who are unable to upgrade. Disable QUIC support by removing or commenting out the `quic://` block in the Corefile, use container runtime resource limits to detect and isolate excessive memory usage, and/or monitor QUIC connection patterns and alert on anomalies.
Affected packages & fixed versions
| Ecosystem | Package | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go | github.com/coredns/coredns | 1.12.2 | GHSA-cvx7-x8pj-x2gw |
| Go | github.com/coredns/coredns | 1.12.2 | GO-2025-3743 |
Affected products (as reported)
Weakness: CWE-770 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
References
- https://github.com/coredns/coredns/security/advisories/GHSA-cvx7-x8pj-x2gw x_refsource_CONFIRM
- https://github.com/coredns/coredns/commit/efaed02c6a480ec147b1f799aab7cf815b17dfe1 x_refsource_MISC
- https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9250 x_refsource_MISC
- https://github.com/quic-go/quic-go x_refsource_MISC
- https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23/presentation/botella x_refsource_MISC