GHSA-v74w-7mr3-4qg3
Netty: Denial of Service in XmlFrameDecoder via CPU Exhaustion
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maven | io.netty:netty-codec-xml | >= 4.2.0.Final, < 4.2.16.Final | 4.2.16.Final |
| Maven | io.netty:netty-codec-xml | < 4.1.136.Final | 4.1.136.Final |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
### Summary
An attacker can cause Denial of Service by sending a specially crafted malicious XML payload (e.g., repeated `</` characters) to a Netty server utilizing XmlFrameDecoder, causing the server's EventLoop thread to exhaust CPU resources and become unresponsive.
### Details
`io.netty.handler.codec.xml.XmlFrameDecoder` suffers from a vulnerability resulting in CPU exhaustion. When `<` followed by `/` is encountered, the decoder scans the remaining buffer for a closing `>`.
Because the parser state is not saved between `decode()` invocations, an attacker can trickle-feed a payload of `</` characters. This forces the decoder to repeatedly rescan the entire accumulated buffer. A 1MB `maxFrameLength` is enough to completely hang a server's thread while it loops endlessly.
### Impact
Denial of Service via CPU Exhaustion. Any application utilizing Netty's XmlFrameDecoder is impacted. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this flaw by sending a modest amount of malformed XML data to an exposed port.
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.
- https://github.com/netty/netty/security/advisories/GHSA-v74w-7mr3-4qg3
- https://github.com/netty/netty/pull/17063
- https://github.com/netty/netty/pull/17065
- https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/5b68c61f37aa4a3045cba624cbea239655c9003b
- https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/bb2ff68a1fb71cb4b0eb9a9e17b66c52aff680c6
- https://github.com/netty/netty
- https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.1.136.Final
- https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.2.16.Final