Vulnerability · Published Oct 21, 2026 · Assigned by apache

CVE-2026-90484Apache bRPC: Null pointer dereference in MySQL reply parser leading to client crash

Medium 6.5

In plain English

A medium-severity null pointer dereference in Apache bRPC from Apache Software Foundation. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.4% (higher than 32% of all known vulnerabilities).

Severity (CVSS 3.1)6.5Medium
Exploit odds (30 days)0.4%top 67.8% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsCISA SSVC: none
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official description

The MySQL client response parser in Apache bRPC dereferences a null pointer when the server peer sends a zero-payload-length response packet. A response packet whose declared payload length is zero is accepted by the frame-length check (is_full_package), after which the parser reads the response type byte via an unbounded 5-byte fetch that returns nullptr, and type = p[4] dereferences it, crashing the client process. Root Cause: In brpc::policy::MysqlReply::ConsumePartialIOBuf, buf.fetch(header, 5) returns nullptr when the buffered data only holds the 4-byte header of a zero-length packet, then the code reads p[4] (and, in the fast-auth path, p2[4]) without checking for a null or zero-length packet. Affected Scenarios: A brpc MySQL client connecting to a malicious or compromised MySQL server (or a MITM) can be crashed by a zero-length server response packet, resulting in denial of service of the client. Fix: The fix rejects zero-length response packets (returning PARSE_ERROR_ABSOLUTELY_WRONG) both for the initial response type determination and after a fast-auth marker, before reading the type byte. Upgrade to the Apache bRPC version 1.18.0 or apply the PR patch at https://github.com/apache/brpc/pull/3536.

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Apache Software Foundation Apache bRPC <= 1.11.0 – before 1.18.0

Weakness: CWE-476 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References