GitHub Advisoryadvisory · Maven
GHSA-q6cq-mhr2-jmr5 Netty: [codec-haproxy] Signed-Byte Sentinel Collision in HAProxyMessageDecoder Leads to Unbounded Memory Exhaustion
HIGH
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-55851
- Ecosystem
- Maven
- Packages
- io.netty:netty-codec-haproxy
- Severity
- High
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-400
- Reviewed
- 2026-07-22
Affected packages
• Maven io.netty:netty-codec-haproxy: >= 4.2.0.Final, < 4.2.16.Final → fixed in 4.2.16.Final
• Maven io.netty:netty-codec-haproxy: >= 4.1.0.Final, < 4.1.136.Final → fixed in 4.1.136.Final
Description
The `HAProxyMessageDecoder` in netty's `codec-haproxy` module performs protocol version detection by reading the 13th byte of the inbound stream as a signed Java `byte` and widening it to `int` without masking. When an attacker sends a PROXY protocol v2 binary prefix (`0D 0A 0D 0A 00 0D 0A 51 55 49 54 0A`) followed by version byte `0xFF`, the sign extension produces `-1`, which collides with the decoder's "need more data" sentinel value. This collision traps the decoder in a version-detection loop where it perpetually requests more data without consuming any bytes, never instantiates the `HeaderExtractor` that enforces header size limits, and causes `ByteToMessageDecoder` to accumulate all subsequent inbound bytes into an unbounded `cumulation` buffer until the JVM exhausts its direct memory allocation.
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-55851 Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-400 Uncontrolled Resource Consumption weakness
References
- https://github.com/netty/netty/security/advisories/GHSA-q6cq-mhr2-jmr5 web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-55851 advisory
- https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/5b68c61f37aa4a3045cba624cbea239655c9003b web
- https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/bb2ff68a1fb71cb4b0eb9a9e17b66c52aff680c6 web
- https://github.com/netty/netty package
- https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.1.136.Final web
- https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.2.16.Final web