Netty: [codec-haproxy] Signed-Byte Sentinel Collision in HAProxyMessageDecoder Leads to Unbounded Memory Exhaustion
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.
describes (1)
Related CVEs.
| ID | severity | exploitable | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2026-55851US | high7.5 | — | ||
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… | ||||
references
External citations — patches, advisories, analysis.
- https://github.com/netty/nettyPACKAGE
- https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/5b68c61f37aa4a3045cba624cbea239655c9003bWEB
- https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/bb2ff68a1fb71cb4b0eb9a9e17b66c52aff680c6WEB
- https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.1.136.FinalWEB
- https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.2.16.FinalWEB
- https://github.com/netty/netty/security/advisories/GHSA-q6cq-mhr2-jmr5WEB
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-55851ADVISORY
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