Scrapy decompression bomb vulnerability
Impact
Scrapy limits allowed response sizes by default through the DOWNLOAD_MAXSIZE and DOWNLOAD_WARNSIZE settings.
However, those limits were only being enforced during the download of the raw, usually-compressed response bodies, and not during decompression, making Scrapy vulnerable to decompression bombs.
A malicious website being scraped could send a small response that, on decompression, could exhaust the memory available to the Scrapy process, potentially affecting any other process sharing that memory, and affecting disk usage in case of uncompressed response caching.
Patches
Upgrade to Scrapy 2.11.1.
If you are using Scrapy 1.8 or a lower version, and upgrading to Scrapy 2.11.1 is not an option, you may upgrade to Scrapy 1.8.4 instead.
Workarounds
There is no easy workaround.
Disabling HTTP decompression altogether is impractical, as HTTP compression is a rather common practice.
However, it is technically possible to manually backport the 2.11.1 or 1.8.4 fix, replacing the corresponding components of an unpatched version of Scrapy with patched versions copied into your own code.
Acknowledgements
This security issue was reported by @dmandefy through huntr.com.
Affected software
Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.
| Platform | Package | Vulnerable versions | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Python (PyPI) | scrapy | >= 2.0.0, < 2.11.1, < 1.8.4 | 2.11.1, 1.8.4 |
References
- https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy/security/advisories/GHSA-7j7m-v7m3-jqm7
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-3572
- https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy/commit/71b8741e3607cfda2833c7624d4ada87071aa8e5
- https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy/commit/809bfac4890f75fc73607318a04d2ccba71b3d9f
- https://docs.scrapy.org/en/latest/news.html#scrapy-2-11-1-2024-02-14
- https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy
- https://huntr.com/bounties/c4a0fac9-0c5a-4718-9ee4-2d06d58adabb
- https://pypi.org/project/scrapy
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-7j7m-v7m3-jqm7
- CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H- Weakness (CWE)
CWE-409- Platform
- Python (PyPI)
- Package
scrapy- Disclosed
- 16.02.2024
- Updated
- 11.10.2026 13:19
Sources and licenses
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - PYSEC-2026-1907 - PyPA Advisory Database; CC BY 4.0
OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-7j7m-v7m3-jqm7 - CC BY 4.0
Vulnerability history: scrapy
All published vulnerabilities of this package (Python (PyPI)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.
- Total entries
- 14
- First → latest
- 09.2017 09.2026
- Without a fix
- 1
- Exploited in attacks
- 0
Severity breakdown
- High 6
- Medium 8
Disclosures per year
- 2017: 1
- 2018: 0
- 2019: 0
- 2020: 0
- 2021: 1
- 2022: 3
- 2023: 0
- 2024: 6
- 2025: 1
- 2026: 2
-
Scrapy decompression bomb vulnerability this entry
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