QUIC's Connection ID Mechanism vulnerable to Memory Exhaustion Attack

Vulnerability Description

quic-go is an implementation of the QUIC protocol in Go. Prior to version 0.42.0, an attacker can cause its peer to run out of memory sending a large number of `NEW_CONNECTION_ID` frames that retire old connection IDs. The receiver is supposed to respond to each retirement frame with a `RETIRE_CONNECTION_ID` frame. The attacker can prevent the receiver from sending out (the vast majority of) these `RETIRE_CONNECTION_ID` frames by collapsing the peers congestion window (by selectively acknowledging received packets) and by manipulating the peer's RTT estimate. Version 0.42.0 contains a patch for the issue. No known workarounds are available.

References

• https://github.com/quic-go/quic-go/security/advisories/GHSA-c33x-xqrf-c478
• https://github.com/quic-go/quic-go/commit/4a99b816ae3ab03ae5449d15aac45147c85ed47a
• https://seemann.io/posts/2024-03-19-exploiting-quics-connection-id-management
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqXtYcZAtIA&t=3683s