The vulnerability stems from improper error handling in the request server's message processing. The security advisory explicitly mentions the fix involves 'properly handling errors in decoded messages in request server.' This indicates the message handling logic (likely in handle_message method of RequestServer) didn't adequately manage exceptions during decoding, leading to worker thread exhaustion. The CWE-404 (resource release) aligns with thread management failures during error conditions. While exact code isn't available, the architectural role of RequestServer in processing minion returns and the described vulnerability mechanism strongly implicate this component.