CVE-2026-44248

Netty: Resource exhaustion in MqttDecoder

Published May 13, 2026 CVSS 3.1 · 5.3 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, the MQTT 5 header Properties section is parsed and buffered before any message size limit is applied. Specifically, in MqttDecoder, the decodeVariableHeader() method is called before the bytesRemainingBeforeVariableHeader > maxBytesInMessage check. The decodeVariableHeader() can call other methods which will call decodeProperties(). Effectively, Netty does not apply any limits to the size of the properties being decoded. Additionally, because MqttDecoder extends ReplayingDecoder, Netty will repeatedly re-parse the enormous Properties sections and buffer the bytes in memory, until the entire thing parses to completion. This can cause high resource usage in both CPU and memory. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

Source ID Title
Github GHSA Github GHSA GHSA-jfg9-48mv-9qgx Netty MQTT: Resource exhaustion in MqttDecoder
History
Type Values Removed Values Added
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:netty:netty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Type Values Removed Values Added
First Time appeared Io.netty
Io.netty netty-codec-mqtt
Netty
Netty netty
Vendors & Products Io.netty
Io.netty netty-codec-mqtt
Netty
Netty netty
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'yes', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, the MQTT 5 header Properties section is parsed and buffered before any message size limit is applied. Specifically, in MqttDecoder, the decodeVariableHeader() method is called before the bytesRemainingBeforeVariableHeader > maxBytesInMessage check. The decodeVariableHeader() can call other methods which will call decodeProperties(). Effectively, Netty does not apply any limits to the size of the properties being decoded. Additionally, because MqttDecoder extends ReplayingDecoder, Netty will repeatedly re-parse the enormous Properties sections and buffer the bytes in memory, until the entire thing parses to completion. This can cause high resource usage in both CPU and memory. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
Title Netty: Resource exhaustion in MqttDecoder
Weaknesses CWE-400
References
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
GitHub_M
Published
Updated
Sep 11, 2026, 12:09 PM
Reserved
May 5, 2026, 4:33 PM
Status
Modified
Published
May 13, 2026, 7:17 PM
Modified
Oct 26, 2026, 5:10 PM
Severity
Important
Public date
May 13, 2026, 6:23 PM