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CVE-2026-50020GHSA-HVCG-QMG6-JM4C

Netty's HttpObjectDecoder skips arbitrary initial control characters when only initial CRLF characters are permitted

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 4.2.15.Final, 4.1.135.Final
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub
  • Exploitation: poc
  • Automatable: yes
  • Technical impact: partial

Summary

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, before reading the first request-line, `HttpObjectDecoder` skips every byte for which `Character.isISOControl(b)` is `true` (0x00–0x1F and 0x7F) as well as all whitespace. RFC 9112 §2.2 only asks servers to ignore empty CRLF lines preceding the request-line — a carefully scoped robustness allowance intended to handle HTTP/1.0 POST workarounds. Silently absorbing NUL bytes, SOH, STX, and other non-CRLF control characters goes significantly beyond this, and can be exploited for request-boundary confusion in pipelined or multiplexed transports where a front-end component treats those bytes differently. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. CISA SSVC assessment

    Exploitation: poc · Automatable: yes · Technical impact: partial

  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • netty netty

    From 4.2.0.Final · fixed in 4.2.15.Final; fixed in 4.1.135.Final

  • io.netty:netty-codec-httpMaven

    From 4.2.0.Final · fixed in 4.2.15.Final

  • io.netty:netty-codec-httpMaven

    fixed in 4.1.135.Final

References 3

GitHub · netty/netty