Denial of service via unbounded policy recursion
Published Jul 24, 2026 · Updated Jul 24, 2026
Uncontrolled recursion in Apache Neethi before 3.2.3 allows remote attackers to exhaust runtime memory via crafted WS-Policy input. The policy parser recursively processes policies without identifiers and deeply nested policy structures without enforcing a recursion or memory bound. An embedding application must accept attacker-controlled policies; exhaustion interrupts that application's policy-processing service.
Summary
What happened
Uncontrolled recursion in Apache Neethi before 3.2.3 allows remote attackers to exhaust runtime memory via crafted WS-Policy input. The policy parser recursively processes policies without identifiers and deeply nested policy structures without enforcing a recursion or memory bound. An embedding application must accept attacker-controlled policies; exhaustion interrupts that application's policy-processing service.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-66142
- Published
- Jul 24, 2026
- Updated
- Jul 24, 2026
- Vendor
- The Apache Software Foundation
- Product
- Apache Neethi
- Classifications
- CWE-400, T1499
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Jul 24, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Jul 24, 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 <3.2.3
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
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Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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