High · published October 9, 2026
HTTP/2 servers could end up crashing due to inadvertently modifying its HPACK encoder concurrently. This happens because the server modifies the HPACK encoder from two goroutines without synchronization: one uses the encoder to encode a HEADERS frame as part of a response sent to a client and the other modifies the encoder's table size when handling a SETTINGS frame containing SETTINGS_HEADER_TABLE_SIZE that a client sends. A malicious client can repeatedly send a request while changing the header table size to crash the server.