CVE-2026-70464
Description
A denial of service flaw was found in the rsync daemon. An unauthenticated remote attacker can stall the handshake process by opening multiple concurrent connections and trickling data or stalling prior to module selection. This bypasses standard timeouts and exhausts all available connection slots, preventing legitimate clients from connecting.
Statement
An unauthenticated remote attacker can exhaust available connection slots by stalling the handshake process, preventing legitimate clients from connecting. This vulnerability primarily affects systems where the rsync daemon is explicitly enabled and exposed to untrusted networks.
Mitigation
Disable the rsync daemon if unused (systemctl disable --now rsyncd), or strictly restrict TCP/873 access to trusted clients using firewall rules and hosts allow directives. Do not rely on standard module timeout settings, as they do not protect against this specific pre-handshake stall. While configuring system limits (TasksMax/LimitNOFILE) can prevent full host resource exhaustion, aggressive IP-based connection filtering is the only reliable way to keep the targeted rsync module available.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 7.5 | N/A | 7.5 |
| Attack Vector | Network | N/A | Network |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | Low |
| Privileges Required | None | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | None |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | None |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Resource Consumption (CPU); DoS: Resource Consumption (Memory); DoS: Resource Consumption (Other)
When allocating resources without limits, an attacker could prevent other systems, applications, or processes from accessing the same type of resource. It can be easy for an attacker to consume many resources by rapidly making many requests or causing larger resources to be used than is needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
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