Netty HTTP request smuggling via chunked/Content-Length before 4.2.13.Final
CVE-2026-42581 Published on May 13, 2026
Netty: HTTP/1.0 TE+CL Coexistence Bypasses Smuggling Sanitization
Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, HttpObjectDecoder strips a conflicting Content-Length header when a request carries both Transfer-Encoding: chunked and Content-Length, but only for HTTP/1.1 messages. The guard is absent for HTTP/1.0. An attacker that sends an HTTP/1.0 request with both headers causes Netty to decode the body as chunked while leaving Content-Length intact in the forwarded HttpMessage. Any downstream proxy or handler that trusts Content-Length over Transfer-Encoding will disagree on message boundaries, enabling request smuggling. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-42581 can be exploited with network access, and does not require authorization privileges or user interaction. This vulnerability is considered to have a low attack complexity. An automatable proof of concept (POC) exploit exists. The potential impact of an exploit of this vulnerability is considered to have no impact on confidentiality, with no impact on integrity, and no impact on availability.
Weakness Type
What is a HTTP Request Smuggling Vulnerability?
When malformed or abnormal HTTP requests are interpreted by one or more entities in the data flow between the user and the web server, such as a proxy or firewall, they can be interpreted inconsistently, allowing the attacker to "smuggle" a request to one device without the other device being aware of it.
CVE-2026-42581 has been classified to as a HTTP Request Smuggling vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-42581
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Affected Versions
netty:- Version >= 4.2.0.Alpha1, < 4.2.13.Final is affected.
- Version < 4.1.133.Final is affected.