High severity · published May 13, 2026
CVE-2026-44248
Netty: Resource exhaustion in MqttDecoder
7.5
CVSS
0.6%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, the MQTT 5 header Properties section is parsed and buffered before any message size limit is applied. Specifically, in MqttDecoder, the decodeVariableHeader() method is called before the bytesRemainingBeforeVariableHeader > maxBytesInMessage check. The decodeVariableHeader() can call other methods which will call decodeProperties(). Effectively, Netty does not apply any limits to the size of the properties being decoded. Additionally, because MqttDecoder extends ReplayingDecoder, Netty will repeatedly re-parse the enormous Properties sections and buffer the bytes in memory, until the entire thing parses to completion. This can cause high resource usage in both CPU and memory. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.6% · higher than 47% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
NE
netty · netty
>= 4.2.0.Alpha1, < 4.2.13.Final; < 4.1.133.Final · source: vendor, NVD
NE
netty-codec-mqtt · io.netty
>= 4.2.0.Alpha1, < 4.2.13.Final; < 4.1.133.Final · source: vendor
RH
Red Hat AMQ Broker 7.13.6 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat AMQ Broker 7.14.1 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Data Grid 8.6.2 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Fuse 7 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA
RH
Red Hat Process Automation 7 · Red Hat
All versions, or not specified · source: CISA