GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Maven
GHSA-343h-94h5-c4wr yawkat LZ4 Java: LZ4BlockInputStream with stopOnEmptyBlock=false recurses once per empty block, causing StackOverflowError
LOW
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-106449
- Ecosystem
- Maven
- Packages
- at.yawk.lz4:lz4-java, org.lz4:lz4-java
- Severity
- Low
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
- Weaknesses
- CWE-674
- Reviewed
- 2026-10-07
Affected packages
• Maven at.yawk.lz4:lz4-java: < 1.11.4 → fixed in 1.11.4
• Maven org.lz4:lz4-java: <= 1.8.1 (no fix yet)
Description
Summary
When `LZ4BlockInputStream` is configured with `stopOnEmptyBlock = false` (the mode for reading concatenated block streams), it handles each empty block by calling `refill()` recursively. A long run of empty blocks exhausts the thread stack and throws `StackOverflowError` out of `read()` or `skip()`.
Details
In `net.jpountz.lz4.LZ4BlockInputStream.refill()`:
```java
if (originalLen == 0 && compressedLen == 0) {
if (check != 0) {
throw new IOException("Stream is corrupted");
}
if (!stopOnEmptyBlock) {
refill();
} else {
finished = true;
}
return;
}
```
Each well-formed empty block is 21 bytes and adds one stack frame, with no limit on nesting depth. In local testing, around 10,000 to 100,000 consecutive empty blocks (about 210 KB to 2.1 MB, depending on JIT state and thread stack size) threw `StackOverflowError`. `StackOverflowError` is an `Error`, not an `IOException`, so callers that only handle I/O errors for corrupt input don't catch it.
Impact
Applications that decode attacker-controlled `LZ4Block` streams with `LZ4BlockInputStream.newBuilder().withStopOnEmptyBlock(false)` or the deprecated `LZ4BlockInputStream(InputStream, boolean)` constructor can have the decoding thread fail with `StackOverflowError`. The default configuration (`stopOnEmptyBlock = true`) is not affected. There is no memory corruption. Availability impact only.
Patch
Fixed in lz4-java 1.11.4. Empty blocks are now skipped in a loop instead of by recursion, so any number of consecutive empty blocks uses constant stack space.
For older versions, the workaround is to use the default `stopOnEmptyBlock = true` for untrusted input, or catch `StackOverflowError` around the read loop.
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-106449 yawkat LZ4 Java provides LZ4 compression for Java. vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-674 Uncontrolled Recursion weakness
References
- https://github.com/yawkat/lz4-java/security/advisories/GHSA-343h-94h5-c4wr web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-106449 advisory
- https://github.com/yawkat/lz4-java/commit/c8ebf97d504fb34434fda46fc761e8202570e0d8 web
- https://github.com/yawkat/lz4-java package
- https://github.com/yawkat/lz4-java/releases/tag/v1.11.4 web