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Netty HTTP/3 QPACK encoder-stream unbounded memory exhaustion DoS

Type: advisorySource: Official CVE List1 source record

Netty's HTTP/3 codec (io.netty:netty-codec-http3) versions 4.2.0.Final through 4.2.17.Final contain an uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability in the QPACK encoder-stream instruction decoder (QpackEncoderHandler, installed on the peer-initiated unidirectional QPACK encoder stream, type 0x02). The handler accepts an attacker-declared string-literal length of up to Integer.MAX_VALUE (~2 GiB) for the Name Length and Value Length fields of the "Insert With Literal Name" instruction (RFC 9204 §4.3.3), with no per-instruction or per-literal length cap and no cumulation-size limit; the existing HTTP/3 limits (maxHeaderListSize, maxUnknownFramePayloadLength, DEFAULT_MAX_FIELD_SECTION_SIZE) are not applied to this handler. A remote, unauthenticated peer with an established HTTP/3 connection to a default Netty HTTP/3 server can declare a very large literal length and then trickle fewer bytes than declared, causing the ByteToMessageDecoder MERGE cumulator to retain and grow the per-connection buffer, and ultimately triggering a large byte-array allocation. This leads to unbounded per-connection heap growth and OutOfMemoryError, resulting in denial of service. Fixed in 4.2.18.Final.

Announced Group revision 1
Original source ↗

CVE-2026-100662

Primary source · Revision 1

Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.

Security context

Source reference: cve:CVE-2026-100662

netty

Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product

Affected versions
Not stated in this record
Fixed versions
Not stated in this record
Prerequisites
Not stated in this record

Structured affected-version data

Original package identities and version rules from this source.

[
  {
    "vendor": "netty",
    "product": "netty",
    "versions": [
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "4.2.0.Final",
        "lessThan": "4.2.18.Final",
        "versionType": "custom"
      },
      {
        "status": "unaffected",
        "version": "4.2.18.Final",
        "versionType": "custom"
      }
    ],
    "packageURL": "pkg:maven/io.netty/netty-codec-http3",
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected"
  }
]
Related CVEs
CVE-2026-100662

Source reference: /cveMetadata/cveId

Publisher severity

high

Source reference: /containers/cna/metrics

Event
#4435 · Revision 1
Added to Heist Feed
Publisher date
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