CVE-2021-22553: Heap Memory exhaustion in Gerrit

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2021-02-17 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-400

Description

Any git operation is passed through Jetty and a session is created. No expiry is set for the session and Jetty does not automatically dispose of the session. Over multiple git actions, this can lead to a heap memory exhaustion for Gerrit servers. We recommend upgrading Gerrit to any of the versions listed above.

Affected products

Gerrit: before 2.15.22; from 2.16.0 before 2.16.26; from 3.0.0 before 3.0.16; from 3.1.0 before 3.1.12; from 3.2.0 before 3.2.7; from 3.3.0 before 3.3.2 — fixed in 2.15.22, 2.16.26, 3.0.16, 3.1.12, 3.2.7, 3.3.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Gerrit 2.15.22, 2.16.26, 3.0.16, 3.1.12. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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