Vulnerability · Published Oct 9, 2026 · Assigned by apache
CVE-2026-78384Apache CXF: Unbounded DEFLATE Decompression in CXF JOSE/JWE and SAML Processing (Decompression Bomb)
High 7.5
In plain English
A high-severity security flaw in Apache CXF 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 31% of all known vulnerabilities).
Official description
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.
Affected products (as reported)
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Apache Software Foundation | Apache CXF | 4.2.0 – before 4.2.44.0.0 – before 4.1.90 – before 3.6.13 |
Weakness: CWE-409 · Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N