Apache CXF up to 3.6.12/4.1.8/4.2.3 Compression Utils CompressionUtils.inflate resource consumption

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Apache CXF up to 3.6.12/4.1.8/4.2.3. It has been rated as problematic. This affects the function CompressionUtils.inflate of the component Compression Utils. The manipulation leads to resource consumption. This vulnerability is referenced as CVE-2026-78384. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Apache CXF up to 3.6.12/4.1.8/4.2.3. It has been rated as problematic. This issue affects the function CompressionUtils.inflate of the component Compression Utils. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a resource consumption vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-400. The product 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. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

CompressionUtils.inflate() decompressed attacker-controlled DEFLATE data with no output-size cap. A small (~KB) crafted payload could expand to gigabytes on the heap. Reachable via JWE decryption when zip=DEF (e.g. JoseSessionTokenProvider with RSA-OAEP key wrap) and via SAML redirect/POST binding token inflation — in both cases decompression happens before/independent of trust validation. Fix: Added a configurable maximum inflated-size cap (default 10 MiB, org.apache.cxf.compression-max-inflated-size system property) to CompressionUtils.inflate(); aborts with DataFormatException once exceeded. Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 4.2.4 or 4.1.9 or 3.6.13, which fix this issue.

It is possible to read the advisory at lists.apache.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-78384 since 08/24/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 10/09/2026). The attack technique deployed by this issue is T1499 according to MITRE ATT&CK.

Upgrading to version 3.6.13, 4.1.9 or 4.2.4 eliminates this vulnerability.

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Productinfo

Type

• Application Server Software

Vendor

• Apache

Name

• CXF

Version

• 3.6.0
• 3.6.1
• 3.6.2
• 3.6.3
• 3.6.4
• 3.6.5
• 3.6.6
• 3.6.7
• 3.6.8
• 3.6.9
• 3.6.10
• 3.6.11
• 3.6.12
• 4.1.0
• 4.1.1
• 4.1.2
• 4.1.3
• 4.1.4
• 4.1.5
• 4.1.6
• 4.1.7
• 4.1.8
• 4.2.0
• 4.2.1
• 4.2.2
• 4.2.3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.apache.org/

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