CVE-2026-50020 PUBLISHED

Netty's HttpObjectDecoder skips arbitrary initial control characters when only initial CRLF characters are permitted

Assigner: GitHub_M
Reserved: 02.06.2026 Published: 12.06.2026 Updated: 12.06.2026

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.

Metrics

CVSS Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CVSS Score: 5.3

Product Status

Vendor netty
Product netty
Versions
  • Version >= 4.2.0.Final, < 4.2.15.Final is affected
  • Version < 4.1.135.Final is affected

References

Problem Types

  • CWE-444: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling') CWE