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CVE PROGRAM SOURCE RECORD8.7 High

CVE-2026-55851

Netty codec-haproxy: Signed-Byte Sentinel Collision in HAProxyMessageDecoder Leads to Unbounded Memory Exhaustion

Description

Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In versions 4.2.0.Final up to (but not including) 4.2.16.Final, and 4.1.0.Final up to (but not including) 4.1.135, the `HAProxyMessageDecoder` in Netty's `codec-haproxy` module performs protocol version detection by reading the 13th byte as a signed Java `byte` and widening it to `int` without masking; a PROXY protocol v2 binary prefix followed by version byte `0xFF` sign-extends to `-1`, collides with the decoder's need-more-data sentinel, and causes `ByteToMessageDecoder` to accumulate inbound bytes in an unbounded `cumulation` buffer until direct memory is exhausted. This issue is fixed in versions 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.Final.

Affected products

Version statuses are supplied by the assigning organization. Consult the original record for detailed ranges and platform conditions.

netty netty

  • >= 4.2.0.Final, < 4.2.16.Finalaffected
  • >= 4.1.0.Final, < 4.1.136.Finalaffected

References