Daemon crash via HTTP/2 workspace fragmentation
Published Apr 12, 2026 · Updated Apr 12, 2026
Denial of service in Varnish Cache 9.0.0 allows remote attackers to crash the daemon via crafted HTTP/2 session data. The HTTP/2 upgrade path repurposes the speculative HTTP/1 request as stream zero, then splits workspace_client for a send buffer, leaving some prefetched-data layouts without space for the next pipelining fetch. An unauthenticated network client must supply a specific amount of prefetched data, causing a panic that interrupts the caching service.
Summary
What happened
Denial of service in Varnish Cache 9.0.0 allows remote attackers to crash the daemon via crafted HTTP/2 session data. The HTTP/2 upgrade path repurposes the speculative HTTP/1 request as stream zero, then splits workspace_client for a send buffer, leaving some prefetched-data layouts without space for the next pipelining fetch. An unauthenticated network client must supply a specific amount of prefetched data, causing a panic that interrupts the caching service.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-40394
- Published
- Apr 12, 2026
- Updated
- Apr 12, 2026
- Vendor
- Varnish Software
- Product
- Varnish Cache
- Classifications
- CWE-670, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Apr 12, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Apr 12, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=9.0.0 <9.0.1
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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