Apache bRPC: Remote Memory Exhaustion in RTMP AMF Parser

Overview

The RTMP AMF parser in Apache bRPC accepts AMF string lengths and array counts directly from untrusted input. A remote unauthenticated attacker who can reach a bRPC server with RTMP enabled can send a small AMF payload with an excessive declared long string length or array count, causing excessive memory allocation or resource consumption before the parser rejects the incomplete payload.

Root Cause: The AMF long string parser resized the destination string to the declared 32-bit length before validating that the stream contained that many bytes. ECMA array and strict array parsers also accepted 32-bit element counts without a configurable upper bound.

Affected Scenarios: Deployments that enable the bRPC RTMP server component and accept RTMP traffic from untrusted clients. Direct uses of the AMF parser on untrusted data are also affected.

How to Fix:

1. Upgrade bRPC to version 1.18.0, which fixes this issue.
2. Apply this patch:  https://github.com/apache/brpc/pull/3353

Note: The fix introduces configurable AMF parsing limits. The default maximum string size is 64 MiB and the default maximum array element count is 1,048,576. Payloads above these limits are rejected. The limits can be adjusted with amf_max_string_size and amf_max_array_size.

Affected

• apache/brpc < 1.18.0

Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.