What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-42403: Apache Neethi: Circular Policy Reference Infinite Loop

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.8% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-05-01 · updated 2026-10-26
• Weakness: CWE-400

Description

Apache Neethi does not properly detect circular references in policy definitions. When a WS-Policy document contains circular policy references (where Policy A references Policy B which references Policy A), the policy normalization process can enter an infinite loop or cause excessive recursion, leading to a stack overflow or application hang. An attacker can craft malicious policy documents with circular references to cause a Denial of Service condition Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.

Affected products

• Apache Software Foundation Apache Neethi: before 3.2.2 — fixed in 3.2.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Apache Software Foundation Apache Neethi 3.2.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://lists.apache.org/thread/zm6t8skkkskjwk1881l4m4n0l7dqclzo
• http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/05/01/7

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