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Netty: Memory Exhaustion in RedisArrayAggregator due to Deeply Nested Arrays

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jun 5, 2026 in netty/netty • Updated Jun 12, 2026

Package

maven io.netty:netty-codec-redis (Maven)

Affected versions

>= 4.2.0.Final, <= 4.2.14.Final
<= 4.1.134.Final

Patched versions

4.2.15.Final
4.1.135.Final

Description

Summary

An attacker can cause DoS by sending a crafted Redis payload with deeply nested arrays. This forces the server to allocate a massive number of state objects and collections, leading to memory exhaustion and an OutOfMemoryError.

Details

io.netty.handler.codec.redis.RedisArrayAggregator aggregates RedisMessage parts into ArrayRedisMessage. It uses a Deque<AggregateState> to keep track of nested arrays. However, it does not limit the maximum depth of nested arrays. When an attacker sends a continuous stream of nested array headers (e.g., *1\r\n*1\r\n*1\r\n...), RedisArrayAggregator pushes a new AggregateState onto the stack and allocates a new ArrayList for each header. Because there is no depth limit, an attacker can send millions of such headers. This consumes a massive amount of heap memory for the AggregateState instances and their backing ArrayLists, eventually resulting in an OutOfMemoryError.

Impact

Denial of Service due to memory exhaustion. Any application using Netty's RedisArrayAggregator to handle untrusted Redis traffic is vulnerable.

References

@chrisvest chrisvest published to netty/netty Jun 5, 2026
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Jun 8, 2026
Reviewed Jun 8, 2026
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jun 11, 2026
Last updated Jun 12, 2026

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS score

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

This score estimates the probability of this vulnerability being exploited within the next 30 days. Data provided by FIRST.
(12th percentile)

Weaknesses

Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource. Learn more on MITRE.

CVE ID

CVE-2026-44250

GHSA ID

GHSA-3244-j874-rhc2

Source code

Credits

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