Gateway denial of service via unreleased plaintext buffers
Published Sep 15, 2026 · Updated Sep 15, 2026
Resource leak in Netty/Incubator/Codec/OHTTP before 0.0.23.Final allows remote attackers to interrupt OHTTP gateway service. OHttpRequestResponseContext.decodeChunk() allocates a pooled direct ByteBuf before AEAD verification and fails to release it when decryptChunk() throws CryptoException for an invalid tag. Repeated unauthenticated encrypted requests with invalid tags consume native off-heap memory until the gateway can no longer serve requests.
Summary
What happened
Resource leak in Netty/Incubator/Codec/OHTTP before 0.0.23.Final allows remote attackers to interrupt OHTTP gateway service. OHttpRequestResponseContext.decodeChunk() allocates a pooled direct ByteBuf before AEAD verification and fails to release it when decryptChunk() throws CryptoException for an invalid tag. Repeated unauthenticated encrypted requests with invalid tags consume native off-heap memory until the gateway can no longer serve requests.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-54251
- Published
- Sep 15, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 15, 2026
- Vendor
- The Netty Project
- Product
- Netty/Incubator/Codec/OHTTP
- Classifications
- CWE-664, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 15, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Sep 15, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=< 0.0.23.Final
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
CVSS describes severity. EPSS estimates exploitation probability.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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