Netty: STOMP CONNECT Frame Header Injection
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · High · None
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 5 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA, GitHub and Red Hat.
Summary
Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. In versions prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.Final, Netty's STOMP encoder ( StompSubframeEncoder ) does not escape or validate header values in CONNECT and CONNECTED frames, so raw newline ( \n ) characters in a header value are written directly to the wire, allowing an attacker who controls a header value to inject additional STOMP headers. This happens because the encoder intentionally skips escaping for CONNECT/CONNECTED frames per the STOMP 1.2 specification but never rejects the raw newlines, and since a broker parses each line as a separate header, an attacker controlling a value such as a user-supplied login or passcode can overwrite connection parameters or add authentication/role headers to bypass authentication or escalate privileges (the actual impact is broker-dependent). The issue is fixed in versions 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.Final.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- Poc
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| netty | netty | before 4.1.136.Final; 4.2.0.Final to before 4.2.16.Final | 4.1.136.Final, 4.2.16.Final | Patch available | CNA |
| — | io.netty:netty-codec-stomp (Maven) | 4.2.0.Final to before 4.2.16.Final | 4.2.16.Final | Patch available | GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh |
| — | io.netty:netty-codec-stomp (Maven) | before 4.1.136.Final | 4.1.136.Final | Patch available | GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh |
- netty Vendornetty Affected before 4.1.136.Final; 4.2.0.Final to before 4.2.16.Final Fixed in 4.1.136.Final, 4.2.16.Final Patch available CNA
- io.netty:netty-codec-stomp (Maven) Vendor— Affected 4.2.0.Final to before 4.2.16.Final Fixed in 4.2.16.Final Patch available GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh
- io.netty:netty-codec-stomp (Maven) Vendor— Affected before 4.1.136.Final Fixed in 4.1.136.Final Patch available GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh
Remediation
- Fix · CNA netty (netty) Fixed in 4.1.136.Final, 4.2.16.Final
- Fix · GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh io.netty:netty-codec-stomp (Maven) Fixed in 4.2.16.Final Advisory →
- Fix · GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh io.netty:netty-codec-stomp (Maven) Fixed in 4.1.136.Final Advisory →
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Data Grid 8 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat build of Apache Camel for Spring Boot 4 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-59920
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh
References
More Netty vulnerabilities
- TI-2023-23979 The HTTP/2 protocol allows a denial of service (server resource consumption) because… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
- TI-2026-30861 Netty: HTTP/1.0 TE+CL Coexistence Bypasses Smuggling Sanitization CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
- TI-2026-30864 Netty: HttpClientCodec response desynchronization CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1
- TI-2026-30859 Netty: DNS Codec Input Validation Bypass in Netty (Encoder + Decoder) CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1
- TI-2026-40973 Netty: Missing CertificateID Validation in OCSP Response Allows Replay Attacks CVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.1
- TI-2026-40972 Uncontrolled resource consumption in netty CVSS 3.1HIGH 7.5
Sources
- CVE-2026-59920 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-59920 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-3g8r-4pfx-jmfh · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-59920 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences