Security Advisories (4)
CVE-2026-57079 (2026-06-30)

Net::BitTorrent versions through 2.0.1 for Perl write files outside the download directory via path traversal in peer-supplied metadata. Net::BitTorrent validates file path components only on the .torrent-file ingest path. The peer and magnet metadata path (_on_metadata_received, reached from the BEP09 ut_metadata extension) passes attacker-supplied file names straight to Storage::add_file and Storage::_parse_file_tree, where Path::Tiny's child() does not collapse "..". A v2 file tree key, a v1 files[].path element, or a single-file name containing ".." segments therefore resolves outside the download directory. Because the peer also controls the piece hashes and the served bytes, content verification passes, so a malicious magnet or peer writes attacker-chosen content to an attacker-chosen path on the downloading host.

CVE-2026-57080 (2026-06-30)

Net::BitTorrent versions through 2.0.1 for Perl allow remote memory exhaustion via an uncapped peer-wire message-length prefix. The peer-wire framing in _process_messages trusts the 4-byte length prefix sent by a connected peer with no upper bound, while receive_data appends every inbound byte to the input buffer. A peer announces a length prefix of up to about 4 GiB and then streams bytes; the decoder waits until the buffer holds the full message before processing it, so the buffer grows without limit. Peer connections are unauthenticated, so any peer in the swarm exhausts the downloading process's memory. The largest legitimate message is a 16 KiB piece block, so any announced length far above that is anomalous.

CVE-2026-57081 (2026-06-30)

Net::BitTorrent versions through 2.0.1 for Perl allow remote memory exhaustion via deeply nested bencoded input. bdecode recurses once per nested list or dictionary level with no depth cap, and each recursive call receives the remaining buffer by value while the list and dictionary branches capture the whole remainder, so every live recursion frame keeps its own copy of the shrinking buffer (O(N^2) bytes for an N-deep input). The decoder runs on every untrusted bencode source: .torrent files, BEP09 metadata fetched from peers, DHT messages, and tracker responses. A bencoded input of roughly 150,000 nested lists (about 150 KB on the wire) drives multi-gigabyte peak memory, so one short message from any peer, or one crafted .torrent file or magnet link, terminates the client.

CVE-2026-57082 (2026-06-30)

Net::BitTorrent versions through 2.0.1 for Perl generate the MSE Diffie-Hellman private key with a non-cryptographic PRNG. The MSE (Message Stream Encryption) handshake derives its 160-bit Diffie-Hellman private key from Perl's rand(), a non-cryptographic drand48-class generator seeded once per process, in KeyExchange.pm. The shared secret and the RC4 keys derived from it (the SHA-1 of "keyA" or "keyB", the shared secret, and the infohash) therefore depend entirely on a predictable PRNG. The same handshake sends, in cleartext, random padding drawn from the same rand() sequence in _random_pad, immediately after the public key and the private-key draw. A passive observer of the handshake recovers the PRNG state from the cleartext padding, reconstructs the private key, computes the shared secret from the peer's public key on the wire, derives the RC4 keys, and decrypts the connection, defeating the passive-observation obfuscation MSE provides.

NAME

Net::BitTorrent::Protocol::BEP23 - Tracker Returns Compact Peer Lists

Description

To reduce the size of tracker responses and to reduce memory and computational requirements in trackers, trackers may return peers as a packed string rather than as a bencoded list.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in IETF RFC 2119.

Overview

In BitTorrent as described in BEP 3 peers wishing to transfer a file contact a central tracker. This tracker returns a list of peers that are currently transferring the file. The list of peers is implemented as a list of bencoded dicts. Each dict in the list contains three fields: *peer id*, *ip*, and *port*. The *peer id* is 20 bytes plus 3 bytes bencoding overhead. The *ip* is a string containing a domain name or an IP address, and an integer port number. The *ip* is variable length, but since in its longest form it is a domain name it cannot exceed 255 bytes plus 4 bytes bencoding overhead. Bencoded integers are also variable length but since it is a port number, it cannot be more than 7 bytes including bencoding overhead. Thus,

total peer list length in bytes < n * ( 23 + 259 + 7 )

It is common now to use a compact format where each peer is represented using only 6 bytes. The first 4 bytes contain the 32-bit ipv4 address. The remaining two bytes contain the port number. Both address and port use network-byte order.

It is SUGGESTED that trackers return compact format by default. By including *compact=0* in the announce URL, the client advises the tracker that is prefers the original format described in BEP 3, and analogously compact=1 advises the tracker that the client prefers compact format. However the compact key-value pair is only advisory: the tracker MAY return using either format. compact is advisory so that trackers may support only the compact format. However, clients MUST continue to support both.

For example,

GET /announce?peer_id=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa&info_hash=aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
&port=6881&left=0&downloaded=100&uploaded=0&compact=1

The compact form at uses the same *peers* key in the bencoded tracker response, but the value is a bencoded string rather than a bencoded list.

The peer id does not appear in the compact format. The format has been in use for years and the lack of a peer id has posed no problems.

This compact format is supported by BitTorrent mainline, Azureus, libtorrent, uTorrent, and probably most other clients.

References

BEP_0003. The BitTorrent Protocol Specification. Cohen. (http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html)
RFC-1034. DOMAIN NAMES - CONCEPTS AND FACILITIES. Mockapetris, November 1987. (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1034)
RFC-2119. (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt)

Copyright

This document has been placed in the public domain.