Resource exhaustion in Netty

CVE-2026-33871

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. In versions prior to 4.1.132.Final and 4.2.10.Final, a remote user can trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) against a Netty HTTP/2 server by sending a flood of `CONTINUATION` frames. The server's lack of a limit on the number of `CONTINUATION` frames, combined with a bypass of existing size-based mitigations using zero-byte frames, allows an user to cause excessive CPU consumption with minimal bandwidth, rendering the server unresponsive. Versions 4.1.132.Final and 4.2.10.Final fix the issue.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.5 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.012 (67.1th percentile), scored .

Low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, but still tracked. 67th percentile — 67.1% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-33871: held from 0.011 to 0.012.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.011 · newest: 0.012 · change: +0.001

Affected products

  • Netty — versions < 4.1.132.Final, >= 4.2.0.Alpha1, < 4.2.10.Final

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-33871?
CVE-2026-33871 is a high-severity vulnerability in Netty, classified under Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling. CVSS score: 7.5/10. Published 2026-03-27.
How severe is CVE-2026-33871?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.5 out of 10.