Netty: SNI handler pre-allocates up to 16 MiB from nine attacker bytes
GHSA-x4gw-5cx5-pgmh · CVE-2026-45416
Published · Modified
Description
SslClientHelloHandler.decode() reads the 24-bit TLS handshake length and, when the ClientHello does not fit in the first record, eagerly allocates ctx.alloc().buffer(handshakeLength) (line 161). The guard at line 140 is handshakeLength > maxClientHelloLength && maxClientHelloLength != 0, and the commonly-used SniHandler/AbstractSniHandler constructors (SniHandler(Mapping), SniHandler(AsyncMapping), AbstractSniHandler()) pass maxClientHelloLength=0 and handshakeTimeoutMillis=0, so the length guard is disabled and no timeout is scheduled. A 16 MiB request exceeds the default pooled chunk size and becomes a huge/unpooled allocation performed immediately. The buffer is retained in the handler until the channel closes.
References
- WEB https://github.com/netty/netty/security/advisories/GHSA-x4gw-5cx5-pgmh
- ADVISORY https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-45416
- PACKAGE https://github.com/netty/netty
- WEB https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.1.135.Final
- WEB https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.2.15.Final
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