Medium severity · published Jun 12, 2026
CVE-2026-50020
Netty's HttpObjectDecoder skips arbitrary initial control characters when only initial CRLF characters are permitted
5.3
CVSS
0.2%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
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.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
Low
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.2% · higher than 14% 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.Final, < 4.2.15.Final; < 4.1.135.Final · source: vendor, NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-50020
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-50020
Release Notes
https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.1.135.Final
Release Notes
https://github.com/netty/netty/releases/tag/netty-4.2.15.Final
Vendor Advisory
https://github.com/netty/netty/security/advisories/GHSA-hvcg-qmg6-jm4c
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