CVE-2026-85721
AsyncHttpClient: Unbounded HTTP/1.1 response decompression enables a decompression-bomb denial of service
At a glance
- Source
- NVD
- EPSS
- EPSS 0.63 % · percentile 50 ()
- State
- PUBLISHED
- Published
- Updated
- Assigner
- GitHub_M
- NVD status
- Awaiting Analysis
Description
The AsyncHttpClient (AHC) library allows Java applications to easily execute HTTP requests and asynchronously process HTTP responses. From 2.0.0 until 2.16.1 and 3.0.12, automatic response decompression on the HTTP/1.1 path uses ChannelManager.newHttpContentDecompressor() to install Http1ContentDecompressor without a cumulative output-size limit. A hostile or compromised server, or an attacker who can alter a response in transit, can send a small gzip, deflate, or snappy response that expands across chunks until the client exhausts its heap and raises OutOfMemoryError; brotli and zstd are also affected when their optional codecs are present. In versions 3.0.8 through 3.0.10, the HTTP/2 decompressor is also unbounded, so switching protocols does not mitigate the issue on those releases. A limit applied to each decode call is insufficient because the response can be delivered as many small chunks, so the fixed implementation tracks total decompressed bytes for the whole response. This issue is fixed in versions 2.16.1 and 3.0.12.
Weaknesses (CWE)
- CWE-400 — Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
- CWE-409 — Improper Handling of Highly Compressed Data (Data Amplification)
References
- https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/security/advisories/GHSA-7grg-jcf7-rpmx
- https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/5ee2841cbf268bba4a200578be3938ccfc6cc6d6
- https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/663a1a91757904b22cfe37e2e6049f1f8ea6ae59
- https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/e1871a19972fb496be1b8ac6be11d79e22ff2162
- https://github.com/AsyncHttpClient/async-http-client/commit/e9f2f7423e0f6503f529656f2955a1317e56ba14
Scores
| Version | Score | Vector | Scored by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CVSS 3.1 | HIGH 7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H | GitHub_M |
| CVSS 3.1 | HIGH 7.5 | CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H | NVD · security-advisories@github.com (Secondary) |
Advisories
- GHSA-7grg-jcf7-rpmx — AsyncHttpClient's unbounded HTTP/1.1 response decompression enables a decompression-bomb denial of service
European references
- ENISA EUVD · EUVD-2026-81907
- GCVE · GCVE-0-2026-85721
Affected products
| Product | Versions |
|---|---|
| AsyncHttpClient · async-http-client | affected >= 2.0.0, < 2.16.1 ; affected >= 3.0.0, < 3.0.12 |
Sources
| Source | Licence |
|---|---|
| CVE List (CVEProject cvelistV5) | CVE Program Terms of Use |
| EPSS (FIRST.org) | FIRST — attribution requested |
| ENISA EUVD | ENISA — reproduction authorised, source acknowledged |
| NVD (NIST) via fkie-cad/nvd-json-data-feeds | Public domain — this product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD |