jackson-databind <2.18.10 Denial-of-Service via XML Duration deserialization
CVE-2026-68497 Published on September 11, 2026
jackson-databind: unbounded numeric parse in Duration and XMLGregorianCalendar deserialization allows CPU denial of service
jackson-databind binds a JSON string to a javax.xml.datatype.Duration or javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar field by passing the raw string verbatim to DatatypeFactory.newDuration(value) or newXMLGregorianCalendar(value) in CoreXMLDeserializers.Std._deserialize. These deserializers are registered by default with no opt-in, so a plain ObjectMapper or JsonMapper with no polymorphic typing and no special configuration reaches this path. The XML Schema lexical grammar permits numeric components of arbitrary length, which the JDK materializes through the native BigInteger(String) and BigDecimal(String) constructors, both quadratic in digit count. Because the digits sit inside a JSON string token rather than a JSON number token, jackson-core's StreamReadConstraints.maxNumberLength guard never applies; jackson's own NumberDeserializers call validateIntegerLength or validateFPLength before parsing a stringified number, but the XML datatype deserializer omits that pre-check. An unauthenticated attacker can therefore submit a single request of a few megabytes, such as a Duration value consisting of the letter P followed by several million digits and the letter Y, and force tens of seconds to several minutes of single-threaded CPU work; a handful of concurrent requests can saturate a server's worker threads. This affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind from 2.0.0 before 2.18.10, from 2.19.0 before 2.21.6, and from 2.22.0 before 2.22.2, and tools.jackson.core:jackson-databind from 3.0.0 before 3.1.6 and from 3.2.0 before 3.2.2. Users should upgrade to 2.18.10, 2.21.6, 2.22.2, 3.1.6, or 3.2.2.
Vulnerability Analysis
CVE-2026-68497 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 and integrity, and a high impact on availability.
Timeline
Fix merged upstream (FasterXML/jackson-databind#6127)
CVE ID disclosed publicly in upstream release notes for #6127 8 days later.
GitHub Security Advisory GHSA-q4xh-88c3-wmh7 published by the maintainer 15 days later.
Weakness Types
What is a Resource Exhaustion Vulnerability?
The software does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource, thereby enabling an actor to influence the amount of resources consumed, eventually leading to the exhaustion of available resources.
CVE-2026-68497 has been classified to as a Resource Exhaustion vulnerability or weakness.
What is a ReDoS Vulnerability?
The product uses a regular expression with an inefficient, possibly exponential worst-case computational complexity that consumes excessive CPU cycles. Some regular expression engines have a feature called "backtracking". If the token cannot match, the engine "backtracks" to a position that may result in a different token that can match. Backtracking becomes a weakness if all of these conditions are met:
CVE-2026-68497 has been classified to as a ReDoS vulnerability or weakness.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-68497
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Affected Versions
FasterXML jackson-databind:- Version 2.0.0 and below 2.18.10 is affected.
- Version 2.19.0 and below 2.21.6 is affected.
- Version 2.22.0 and below 2.22.2 is affected.
- Version 3.0.0 and below 3.1.6 is affected.
- Version 3.2.0 and below 3.2.2 is affected.