CVE-2024-41989 in Django
Summary
by MITRE • 08/07/2024
An issue was discovered in Django 5.0 before 5.0.8 and 4.2 before 4.2.15. The floatformat template filter is subject to significant memory consumption when given a string representation of a number in scientific notation with a large exponent.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 06/08/2025
The vulnerability identified as CVE-2024-41989 represents a critical memory consumption issue within the Django web framework's floatformat template filter. This flaw affects versions prior to 5.0.8 and 4.2.15, creating a potential denial of service vector that could be exploited by malicious actors. The issue specifically manifests when the floatformat filter processes string representations of numbers in scientific notation containing large exponents, leading to excessive memory allocation and consumption patterns that can overwhelm system resources.
The technical root cause of this vulnerability lies in how Django's floatformat template filter handles numeric string parsing and formatting operations. When processing scientific notation with large exponents, the filter enters into memory-intensive computational loops that scale exponentially with the magnitude of the exponent value. This behavior creates a resource exhaustion condition where the application consumes increasingly larger amounts of memory proportional to the input size, potentially leading to system instability or complete service unavailability. The vulnerability operates at the template rendering layer, making it particularly dangerous as it can be triggered through user-supplied input that gets processed through Django's templating system.
From an operational impact perspective, this vulnerability presents a significant risk to Django applications that process user input through template filters, particularly those handling financial data, scientific calculations, or any numeric input that might be formatted in scientific notation. Attackers could exploit this by submitting carefully crafted numeric strings with large exponents to trigger memory exhaustion on the application server. The vulnerability aligns with CWE-400, which addresses "Uncontrolled Resource Consumption," and represents a classic example of a denial of service attack that leverages resource consumption patterns rather than direct code execution. This type of vulnerability is particularly concerning in cloud environments where resource limits are strictly enforced and memory exhaustion could lead to application termination or resource throttling.
The mitigation strategy for CVE-2024-41989 involves immediate upgrade of affected Django installations to versions 5.0.8 or 4.2.15, which contain the necessary patches to address the memory consumption issue. Organizations should also implement input validation and sanitization measures at the application level to prevent malformed scientific notation input from reaching the template filter. Additionally, monitoring systems should be configured to detect unusual memory consumption patterns that might indicate exploitation attempts. From an ATT&CK framework perspective, this vulnerability maps to technique T1499.004, which covers "Endpoint Denial of Service," and represents a resource exhaustion attack that can be classified as a system resource exhaustion threat. Security teams should also consider implementing rate limiting and input length restrictions on numeric fields that might be processed through template filters to reduce the attack surface.