CVE-2026-102834 in JavaCV
Summary
by MITRE • 10/16/2026
JavaCV provides Java interfaces to OpenCV, FFmpeg, and other multimedia libraries. Prior to 1.5.14, IPCameraFrameGrabber doubles a 32-bit buffer capacity without checking for overflow or bounding the parsed Content-Length. An application consumes an MJPEG response from a malicious camera endpoint or a tampered plaintext stream. The source can return an oversized Content-Length header in an MJPEG stream. Successful exploitation can trap the frame-grabbing thread in a permanent CPU-spinning loop and deny service. This issue is fixed in version 1.5.14.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 10/16/2026
JavaCV serves as a critical bridge for Java-based applications, providing high-level interfaces to powerful multimedia libraries such as OpenCV and FFmpeg. These tools are frequently employed in computer vision tasks, video processing pipelines, and real-time analytics systems where efficient handling of image streams is paramount. The IPCameraFrameGrabber component within this framework is specifically designed to ingest video feeds from IP cameras, often utilizing the MJPEG (Motion JPEG) format due to its simplicity and low latency requirements for streaming applications. However, prior to version 1.5.14, a significant implementation flaw existed in how this component managed memory allocation when parsing HTTP headers associated with these streams.
The core technical vulnerability lies in an integer overflow condition during buffer capacity calculation. When the IPCameraFrameGrabber processes an MJPEG response, it reads the Content-Length header to determine the size of the incoming data chunk. The code attempts to allocate a byte array by doubling this 32-bit value, presumably as a heuristic for buffering or alignment purposes. Crucially, this operation lacks any validation checks for integer overflow and does not bound the parsed Content-Length against reasonable limits. In Java, when an arithmetic operation exceeds the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer (2^31 - 1), it wraps around to negative values. Consequently, if a malicious camera endpoint or a tampered plaintext stream returns a large Content-Length header, such as one close to Integer.MAX_VALUE, doubling this value results in a negative number being passed to the array allocation method.
This overflow leads directly to an insufficient buffer size issue because Java arrays cannot be allocated with negative sizes, but depending on the specific JVM implementation and subsequent logic flow, it can also lead to extremely small allocations or exceptions that disrupt normal control flow. More critically, as described in the vulnerability report, this flaw allows for a denial of service scenario where the frame-grabbing thread becomes trapped in a permanent CPU-spinning loop. This occurs because the malformed buffer state prevents proper termination conditions from being met within the reading logic, causing the thread to consume 100% of a CPU core indefinitely without making progress on actual data processing or releasing resources.
The operational impact of this vulnerability is severe for any application relying on JavaCV for real-time video ingestion. An attacker who can control the HTTP headers sent by an IP camera or intercept and modify network traffic containing MJPEG streams can trigger this condition remotely. The resulting denial of service affects not only the specific thread handling that stream but potentially the entire application if critical resources are exhausted or if the unresponsive thread blocks other dependent processes. This represents a classic resource exhaustion attack vector, undermining the availability aspect of the CIA triad for systems depending on continuous video analysis.
From a classification perspective, this vulnerability aligns with CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound, as the root cause is the failure to handle arithmetic operations that exceed the capacity of the data type used. Furthermore, it maps to CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption, specifically leading to CPU exhaustion. In terms of adversary tactics, this aligns with MITRE ATT&CK technique T1499: Endpoint Denial of Service, where an attacker aims to degrade or disrupt the availability of a system by exhausting computational resources rather than compromising confidentiality or integrity.
Mitigation for this issue is straightforward and involves upgrading to JavaCV version 1.5.14 or later, which includes patches that properly validate integer bounds before allocation and ensure safe arithmetic operations. For organizations unable to upgrade immediately, defensive coding practices should be implemented in custom wrappers around the IPCameraFrameGrabber class. This includes manually validating the Content-Length header against a predefined maximum threshold before passing it to the library functions and implementing timeout mechanisms for thread execution to prevent indefinite CPU spinning. Additionally, network-level filtering can be employed to restrict access to video streams from untrusted or potentially compromised IP camera endpoints, thereby reducing the attack surface available to external actors seeking to exploit this resource exhaustion flaw.