High severity · published Sep 17, 2026
CVE-2026-85721
AsyncHttpClient: Unbounded HTTP/1.1 response decompression enables a decompression-bomb denial of service
7.5
CVSS
0.6%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
The AsyncHttpClient (AHC) library allows Java applications to easily execute HTTP requests and asynchronously process HTTP responses. From 2.0.0 until 2.16.1 and 3.0.12, automatic response decompression on the HTTP/1.1 path uses ChannelManager.newHttpContentDecompressor() to install Http1ContentDecompressor without a cumulative output-size limit. A hostile or compromised server, or an attacker who can alter a response in transit, can send a small gzip, deflate, or snappy response that expands across chunks until the client exhausts its heap and raises OutOfMemoryError; brotli and zstd are also affected when their optional codecs are present. In versions 3.0.8 through 3.0.10, the HTTP/2 decompressor is also unbounded, so switching protocols does not mitigate the issue on those releases. A limit applied to each decode call is insufficient because the response can be delivered as many small chunks, so the fixed implementation tracks total decompressed bytes for the whole response. This issue is fixed in versions 2.16.1 and 3.0.12.
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 50% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
AS
async-http-client · AsyncHttpClient
>= 2.0.0, < 2.16.1; >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.12 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-85721
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-85721
github.com
https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/5ee2841cbf268bba4a200578be3938ccfc6cc6d6
github.com
https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/663a1a91757904b22cfe37e2e6049f1f8ea6ae59
github.com
https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/e1871a19972fb496be1b8ac6be11d79e22ff2162
github.com
https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/e9f2f7423e0f6503f529656f2955a1317e56ba14
github.com
https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/security/advisories/GHSA-7grg-jcf7-rpmx
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