# CVE-2017-16111: content regular expression denial of service in HTTP headers

Source: https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2017-16111-content-regular-expression-denial-of-service-in-http-headers  
Publisher: Junglewise Threat Intelligence, https://junglewise.ai/threats  
Published: 2018-07-24. Updated: 2026-09-25  
License: CC BY 4.0 with a link back

CVE-2017-16111 · Severity: low · CVSS 3 · Published 2018-07-24

The content npm package is a Node.js library for parsing HTTP headers. A regular expression denial of service (ReDoS) vulnerability allows an attacker to send malicious Content-Type or Content-Disposition headers that cause the library to consume excessive CPU resources, potentially freezing or crashing applications that depend on it.

Vendors: [npm](https://junglewise.ai/threats/vendors/npm).

## Quick answers

**Is CVE-2017-16111 exploited in the wild?** No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2017-16111 being exploited in the wild.

**How severe is CVE-2017-16111?** Low severity, with a CVSS score of 3, published 24 July 2018.

**Which products and versions are affected?** content (npm) SEMVER:introduced=0,fixed=3.0.7.

**Is there a fix for CVE-2017-16111?** Yes. content (npm): upgrade to 3.0.7 or later. Junglewise finds every place you run it, drafts the upgrade and applies it once you approve.

**How is CVE-2017-16111 attacked?** It is attacked over the network.

**Am I affected by CVE-2017-16111?** Check whether you run content (npm) at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.

## How to fix

- content (npm): upgrade to 3.0.7 or later

  ```sh
  npm install content@3.0.7
  ```


## Technical details

The vulnerability is a regular expression denial of service (ReDoS) in the content npm package, affecting versions prior to 3.0.7. The root cause is an uncontrolled resource consumption weakness (CWE-400) in the regular expressions used to parse Content-Type and Content-Disposition HTTP headers. An unauthenticated attacker on the network can send specially crafted header values that cause catastrophic backtracking in the regex engine, leading to excessive CPU consumption and denial of service. The attack requires no user interaction and the vulnerable component is directly exposed to any HTTP client. A patch is available in version 3.0.7 and later.

## Affected products

- npm content all versions prior to 3.0.7

## Identifiers

- CVE-2017-16111
- GHSA-x6wp-rfwh-hcx7

## Timeline

- 2018-07-24: disclosed
- 2018-07-24: patched: Fixed in version 3.0.7

## Related threats

- [@hapi/content ReDoS in Content-Disposition parsing](https://junglewise.ai/threats/cve-2026-119202-hapi-content-provides-http-content-header-parsing-from-3-0-6)