High severity · published Oct 27, 2026
CVE-2026-104016
jackson-dataformat-protobuf: signed integer overflow in string-length paths allows unbounded array allocation and OutOfMemoryError
New
7.5
CVSS
0.7%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
ProtobufParser parses length-prefixed protobuf string and bytes fields by checking (_inputPtr + len) <= _inputEnd and then, on the fast path, calling _finishShortText(len). Both use 32-bit signed integer arithmetic. When an attacker supplies a varint decoding to a length near Integer.MAX_VALUE, _inputPtr + len overflows to a negative value, the bounds check passes, and _finishShortText(len) reaches TextBuffer.expandCurrentSegment(len), which performs Arrays.copyOf with no cap and throws OutOfMemoryError: Requested array size exceeds VM limit.
The JVM refuses arrays larger than Integer.MAX_VALUE - 8 before consulting available heap, so -Xmx tuning does not mitigate the issue. StreamReadConstraints.maxStringLength and maxDocumentLength do not gate this path: a 33-byte payload is far below any document-length cap and the string-length check does not fire before the allocation. This was confirmed empirically against shipping artifacts with maxStringLength, maxDocumentLength and maxNestingDepth all configured.
A February 2026 hardening commit added the equivalent overflow guard to the packed-array-length and message-length paths but left the string-length call sites unguarded. No privileges or user interaction beyond the ability to submit data for parsing are required.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.7% · higher than 52% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
JA
jackson-dataformat-protobuf · FasterXML
2.6.0 before 2.18.12; 2.19.0 before 2.21.8; 2.22.0 before 2.22.4; 3.0.0 before 3.1.8; 3.2.0 before 3.2.4 · source: vendor
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-104016
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-104016
github.com
https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-dataformats-binary/security/advisories/GHSA-c2rq-mcfv-jw29
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