GHSA-q6cq-mhr2-jmr5

ghsaUSosv

Netty: [codec-haproxy] Signed-Byte Sentinel Collision in HAProxyMessageDecoder Leads to Unbounded Memory Exhaustion

view advisory published 2026-07-22Licence: CC-BY-4.0

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.

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describes (1)

Related CVEs.

IDseverity exploitable
CVE-2026-55851UShigh7.5—
Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In versions 4.2.0.Final up to (but not including) 4.2.16.Final, and 4.1.0.Final up to (but…
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