Severity by source
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
AC:H because desync requires a co-operating front-end that interprets control bytes differently; S:C because smuggling impacts other users' request integrity.
Primary rating from Vendor (GitHub_M).
CVSS VectorVendor: GitHub_M
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Lifecycle Timeline
3Blast Radius
ecosystem impact- 344 maven packages depend on io.netty:netty-codec-http (32 direct, 312 indirect)
Ecosystem-wide dependent count for version 4.2.0.Final.
DescriptionCVE.org
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.
AnalysisAI
HTTP request smuggling in Netty's HttpObjectDecoder (netty-codec-http) allows unauthenticated remote attackers to manipulate request-boundary parsing in pipelined or multiplexed deployments by injecting non-CRLF ISO control characters (NUL, SOH, STX, etc.) before the HTTP request-line. Affected are all Netty releases prior to 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final; both branches have vendor-confirmed patches. No public exploit code has been identified and EPSS is 0.04% (12th percentile), indicating low current exploitation likelihood, though the attack surface expands significantly in architectures fronted by proxies or load balancers that strip or interpret those control bytes differently than Netty does.
Technical ContextAI
Netty is a widely-used Java NIO-based network application framework (CPE: cpe:2.3:a:netty:netty:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*) providing HTTP codec support through the netty-codec-http component. The root cause is CWE-444 (Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests), specifically within HttpObjectDecoder's pre-parsing phase: before consuming the first request-line byte, the decoder silently discards any byte for which Java's Character.isISOControl(b) returns true (0x00-0x1F and 0x7F), in addition to whitespace. RFC 9112 §2.2 permits ignoring only empty CRLF sequences (0x0D 0x0A) preceding the request-line - a narrowly scoped robustness allowance. Netty's over-broad tolerance for arbitrary control characters means that a front-end intermediary (reverse proxy, load balancer, WAF) that treats those bytes as request delimiters or strips them before forwarding can end up with a fundamentally different view of where one HTTP request ends and the next begins, enabling classic HTTP desync/smuggling attacks.
RemediationAI
Upgrade netty-codec-http to 4.1.135.Final (4.1.x users) or 4.2.15.Final (4.2.x users); both are confirmed patched releases per the vendor release notes at https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.1.135.Final and https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.2.15.Final. If an immediate upgrade is not feasible, a practical compensating control is to configure the front-end proxy or load balancer to reject or normalize requests containing non-CRLF control characters (0x00-0x1F except 0x0D/0x0A, and 0x7F) before forwarding to Netty - note this only prevents the desync vector and does not fix the underlying parser flaw. Alternatively, avoiding HTTP/1.1 pipelining between the front-end and Netty reduces the smuggling surface, at the cost of connection reuse efficiency. The security advisory GHSA-hvcg-qmg6-jm4c is part of a coordinated Netty release that also addresses ten other CVEs; upgrading resolves the full set.
Denial of service against HTTP/2 server implementations allows remote unauthenticated attackers to exhaust server resour
Certificate revocation-check bypass in the Netty network framework's OCSP client (io.netty:netty-handler-ssl-ocsp) affec
Netty, an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework, has a vulnerability starting in version 4.1.91.Final
Memory exhaustion in Netty's SctpMessageCompletionHandler (netty-transport-sctp) allows unauthenticated remote peers to
Compression-amplification denial of service in the Netty network framework (versions prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.F
Memory-amplification denial of service in the Netty network framework (SPDY/3.1 codec) prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16
Memory-exhaustion denial of service in Netty's HTTP/3 codec (Http3FrameCodec) affects all releases prior to 4.2.16.Final
Denial of service in the Netty HTTP/3 codec (io.netty:netty-codec-http3) prior to version 4.2.15.Final allows remote una
Denial of service in Netty's io.netty:netty-codec-redis component (prior to 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final) allows remot
Netty project is an event-driven asynchronous network application framework. Rated high severity (CVSS 7.5), this vulner
Netty 4.1.43.Final allows HTTP Request Smuggling because it mishandles Transfer-Encoding whitespace (such as a [space]Tr
Netty before 4.1.42.Final mishandles whitespace before the colon in HTTP headers (such as a "Transfer-Encoding : chunked
Same weakness CWE-444 – HTTP Request/Response Smuggling
View allSame technique Request Smuggling
View allVendor StatusVendor
SUSE
Severity: Moderate| Product | Status |
|---|---|
| openSUSE Tumbleweed | Fixed |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Package Hub 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Package Hub 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP4-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Enterprise Storage 7.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP2-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP4-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP6 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Development Tools 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Package Hub 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Module for Package Hub 15 SP6 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-BCL | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-BCL | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-BCL | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-BCL | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3-LTSS | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP3 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP4 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | Affected |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP5 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Proxy 4.2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Retail Branch Server 4.2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.1 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.2 | Not-Affected |
| SUSE Manager Server 4.2 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.3 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.3 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.3 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.4 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.5 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Not-Affected |
| openSUSE Leap 15.6 | Not-Affected |
| suse/manager/5.0/x86_64/server suse/multi-linux-manager/5.1/x86_64/server suse/multi-linux-manager/5.2/x86_64/server | Affected |
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External POC / Exploit Code
Leaving vuln.today
EUVD-2026-36468
GHSA-hvcg-qmg6-jm4c