Django REST framework: Accept header with many large quoted parameters burns ~19s of CPU per request in content negotiation
Impact
Django REST framework versions prior to 3.18.2 are affected by a vulnerability where an unauthenticated client can send many distinct media types with large quoted parameter values, causing disproportionate CPU consumption. This can make the service unavailable. The issue is related to uncontrolled resource consumption and inefficient algorithmic complexity.
Summarized by @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast. Verify details against the original sources.Affected packages
Affected products
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encode · GitHub_M
django-rest-framework
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encode · GitHub_M
django-rest-framework
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affected
< 3.18.2
Other versions: unknown
Original source description
Django REST framework is a toolkit for building Web APIs. Prior to 3.18.2, DefaultContentNegotiation.get_accept_list in rest_framework/negotiation.py accepts an unbounded number and aggregate size of Accept tokens, while select_renderer in that file repeatedly invokes _MediaType parsing from rest_framework/utils/mediatypes.py for each attacker-controlled token, every renderer, and forced 406 renegotiation. A remote unauthenticated client can send many distinct media types containing large quoted parameter values with numerous semicolons, causing Django's parameter parser and DRF's repeated parsing structure to consume disproportionate CPU. Requests to any reachable endpoint can pin synchronous workers for prolonged periods, and concurrent requests can make the service unavailable until the requests stop. This issue is fixed in version 3.18.2.
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Evidence available
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Original records
CVE-2026-114138View the latest unmodified CVE JSON from the official source. It may be newer than this imported page.
cve.new JSON →Underlying weaknesses
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