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

Net::BitTorrent versions before 2.1.0 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 2.1.0 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 2.1.0 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 before 2.1.0 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

004-resume.pl - Demonstration of Net::BitTorrent::Torrent's Resume System

Description

This is a basic example of how the Resume System built into Net::BitTorrent::Torrent is to be used.

Synopsis

004-resume.pl

Lowdown

This section only makes sense when you view the source.

Line 7

Loads our .torrent file and sets the filename for the related resume data.

Line 10

Sets a per-torrent callback which, when triggered, saves our resume data.

Line 12-14

Here, at the end of the process, we store resume data for every torrent in the client. Yes, yes, I know... this little script only loads a single torrent. Consider it a bonus for folks writing your own your own clients. A small and obvious bonus, sure, but a bonus all the same.

This is probably the most important place to save resume data because on restore, the last modified times of each file is compared with the times stored in the resume data. If any of them fail to match, all of the resume data is considered invalid.

Line 20

Let's keep a backup of the original metadata file just in case Net::BitTorrent::Torrent makes a mistake and ruins everything.

Line 22

Writes the new resume data to the file. Now, the next time Net::BitTorrent::Torrent loads this file, it will see the resume data and if it looks okay, your progress will be restored.

Notes

In this script, we store resume data after each piece validates and at the end of the script. In practice, you may want to store this on a more regular basis or on a schedule (every half hour). I do not suggest saving resume data every time a block is written to disk; true, this would keep resume data as up to date as possible, but there are certain internal steps taken while resume data is gathered that would, in the long run, slow everything down to a crawl. For more, see save_resume_data ( ) in Net::BitTorrent::Torrent and the sections 'Resume API' and 'How do I quick Resume a .torrent Session Between Client Sessions?' in Net::BitTorrent::Notes.

Author

Sanko Robinson <sanko@cpan.org> - http://sankorobinson.com/

CPAN ID: SANKO

License and Legal

Copyright (C) 2008-2009 by Sanko Robinson <sanko@cpan.org>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of The Artistic License 2.0. See the LICENSE file included with this distribution or http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0. For clarification, see http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_2_0_notes.

When separated from the distribution, all POD documentation is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode. For clarification, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/.

Neither this module nor the Author is affiliated with BitTorrent, Inc.