CVE-2026-42584: Netty: HttpClientCodec response desynchronization

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.1 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: yes
Published: 2026-05-13 · updated 2026-10-26
Weakness: CWE-444

Description

Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, HttpClientCodec pairs each inbound response with an outbound request by queue.poll() once per response, including for 1xx. If the client pipelines GET then HEAD and the server sends 103, then 200 with GET body, then 200 for HEAD, the queue pairs HEAD with the first 200. The HEAD rule then skips reading that message’s body, so the GET entity bytes stay on the stream and the following 200 is parsed from the wrong offset. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.

Affected products

netty: before 4.1.133; from 4.2.0 before 4.2.13 — fixed in 4.1.133, 4.2.13

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: netty 4.1.133, 4.2.13. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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