jackson-dataformat-protobuf: integer overflow in ProtobufParser._readStringKey() allows OutOfMemoryError from an 8-byte payload
- Published
- Last modified
- Where the record stands: published, rejected by its publisher, or superseded by another id.What do these mean? →
- published
- Whether CISA lists it in its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog: proof that attackers are using it.What do these mean? →
- Not listed in CISA KEV
- Fix
- Fixed in 2.21.8, 2.22.4, 3.1.8, 3.2.4
- Whether working attack code is public (Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei or GitHub). Public code makes attacks easier.What do these mean? →
- None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
Summary
The jackson-dataformat-protobuf library for Java is affected. A tiny malformed protobuf message can trigger an out-of-memory error during parsing, which can crash the Java application or terminate the JVM, even when Jackson's configured string and document size limits are in place.
Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.
Read the original description
ProtobufParser._readStringKey() reads the length prefix of a protobuf map entry's string key into an attacker-controlled int and then checks (_inputPtr + len) <= _inputEnd using signed arithmetic. For values near Integer.MAX_VALUE the addition overflows to a negative value and the check passes even when the input contains no key data. The parser then calls _finishShortText(len), which expands the text buffer to the declared length via TextBuffer.expandCurrentSegment and Arrays.copyOf, throwing OutOfMemoryError: Requested array size exceeds VM limit. An 8-byte malformed message containing a map entry with a declared key length of 0x7FFFFFFF is sufficient. Configured StreamReadConstraints, including maxStringLength, maxNameLength, maxDocumentLength and maxNestingDepth, do not prevent the failure. Applications running with -XX:+ExitOnOutOfMemoryError terminate the JVM. This is the same integer-overflow pattern addressed for other call sites in the remediation associated with CVE-2026-104016 and CVE-2026-104017; the map-key call site was corrected on the 3.x branches only, leaving the corresponding 2.x branches unguarded. Release lines 2.18, 2.19 and 2.20 do not contain _readStringKey() and are not affected by this vector. No privileges or user interaction beyond the ability to submit data for parsing are required. The 3.0 release line and 3.1.0-3.1.5 / 3.2.0-3.2.1 do not contain _readStringKey() and are therefore not affected; the method first appears in 3.1.6 and 3.2.2, mirroring its introduction at 2.21.6 on the 2.x side.
Timeline
- CVE published
- First seen by cve.now
Affected versions
- com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat:jackson-dataformat-protobuf
From 2.21.6 · fixed in 2.21.8; From 2.22.0 · fixed in 2.22.4
- tools.jackson.dataformat:jackson-dataformat-protobuf
From 3.1.6 · fixed in 3.1.8; From 3.2.2 · fixed in 3.2.4