Fleet vulnerable to Denial of Service via unhandled gRPC log type in launcher endpoint

Description

Summary

A Denial of Service vulnerability in Fleet's gRPC Launcher endpoint allows an authenticated host to crash the entire Fleet server process by sending an unexpected log type value. The server terminates immediately, disrupting all connected hosts, MDM enrollments, and API consumers.

Impact

An attacker with access to a valid Launcher node key can send a specially crafted gRPC request to the Fleet server that triggers an unrecoverable server crash. The gRPC server lacks appropriate error recovery handling, meaning the entire Fleet process terminates rather than gracefully rejecting the malformed input.

Because the crash is instant and repeatable, an attacker could script repeated requests to prevent the server from recovering, resulting in a persistent denial of service until a patched version is deployed.

Workarounds

There is no workaround for this issue other than upgrading to a patched version.

For more information

If there are any questions or comments about this advisory:

Send an email to [email protected]

Join #fleet in osquery Slack

Credits

Fleet thanks @fuzzztf for responsibly reporting this issue.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-03-30 19:22:39 UTC
Updated
2026-04-01 06:10:54 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-03-30 19:22:39 UTC
NVD published
2026-03-27

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.06% 17.34%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
6.6 4.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Exploitation conditions are straightforward and stable.
Attack requirements (AT:N)
No additional preconditions are required beyond normal reachability.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:N)
No confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:N)
No integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:H)
High availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.
Exploit maturity (threat) (E:U)
Unreported: no public PoC, no reported exploitation, and no known simplification tools.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-703 Improper Check or Handling of Exceptional Conditions

Credits

  • fuzzztf (reporter)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
go github.com/fleetdm/fleet/v4 < 4.81.0 4.81.0

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence