Executive brief
Routinator, a tool used to verify Internet routing security, contains a flaw that causes the service to shut down unexpectedly when it encounters certain connection errors. An attacker can intentionally trigger this shutdown by flooding the service with a large number of connection requests, effectively knocking the system offline. This disruption can prevent the network from properly validating routing information, potentially impacting internet connectivity and security.
Technical details
Routinator (up to version 0.15.1) suffers from improper handling of exceptional conditions (CWE-755) within its HTTP and RTR server components. The application is designed to exit immediately upon encountering any error during the 'accept' phase of a connection, including recoverable resource exhaustion errors such as EMFILE (too many open files). A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit this by initiating a large number of concurrent connections to exhaust available file descriptors, forcing the Routinator process to terminate. This vulnerability is mitigated if the HTTP or RTR interfaces are not exposed to untrusted networks. The issue is resolved in version 0.15.2.
Affected products
- NLnet Labs Routinator up to and including 0.15.1
Timeline
- 2026-06-08: disclosed
- 2026-06-08: advisory
- 2026-06-08: patched: Fixed in version 0.15.2