Security Bulletin
Summary
Multiple vulnerabilities in Netty used by IBM webMethods Managed File Transfer have been addressed in MAT_11.1_Server_Fix5 and MAT_12.1_Server_Fix1
Vulnerability Details
CVEID: CVE-2026-42580
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, Netty's chunk size parser silently overflows int, enabling request smuggling attacks. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-190: Integer Overflow or Wraparound
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 6.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:L)
CVEID: CVE-2026-42581
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, HttpObjectDecoder strips a conflicting Content-Length header when a request carries both Transfer-Encoding: chunked and Content-Length, but only for HTTP/1.1 messages. The guard is absent for HTTP/1.0. An attacker that sends an HTTP/1.0 request with both headers causes Netty to decode the body as chunked while leaving Content-Length intact in the forwarded HttpMessage. Any downstream proxy or handler that trusts Content-Length over Transfer-Encoding will disagree on message boundaries, enabling request smuggling. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-444: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
CVSS Source: NVD
CVSS Base score: 9.8
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2026-42584
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, HttpClientCodec pairs each inbound response with an outbound request by queue.poll() once per response, including for 1xx. If the client pipelines GET then HEAD and the server sends 103, then 200 with GET body, then 200 for HEAD, the queue pairs HEAD with the first 200. The HEAD rule then skips reading that message’s body, so the GET entity bytes stay on the stream and the following 200 is parsed from the wrong offset. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-444: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
CVSS Source: NVD
CVSS Base score: 9.1
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2026-42585
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, Netty incorrectly parses malformed Transfer-Encoding, enabling request smuggling attacks. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-444: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
CVSS Source: NVD
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N)
CVEID: CVE-2026-42587
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, HttpContentDecompressor accepts a maxAllocation parameter to limit decompression buffer size and prevent decompression bomb attacks. This limit is correctly enforced for gzip and deflate encodings via ZlibDecoder, but is silently ignored when the content encoding is br (Brotli), zstd, or snappy. An attacker can bypass the configured decompression limit by sending a compressed payload with Content-Encoding: br instead of Content-Encoding: gzip, causing unbounded memory allocation and out-of-memory denial of service. The same vulnerability exists in DelegatingDecompressorFrameListener for HTTP/2 connections. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2026-41417
DESCRIPTION: Netty allows request-line validation to be bypassed when a `DefaultHttpRequest` or `DefaultFullHttpRequest` is created first and its URI is later changed via `setUri()`. The constructors reject CRLF and whitespace characters that would break the start-line, but `setUri()` does not apply the same validation. `HttpRequestEncoder` and `RtspEncoder` then write the URI into the request line verbatim. If attacker-controlled input reaches `setUri()`, this enables CRLF injection and insertion of additional HTTP or RTSP requests, leading to HTTP request smuggling or desynchronization on the HTTP side and request injection on the RTSP side. This issue is fixed in versions 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-93: Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences ('CRLF Injection')
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 5.3
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N)
CVEID: CVE-2026-44249
DESCRIPTION: Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. In netty-handler prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, an attacker can bypass IPv6 subnet rules due to an incorrect masking operation in IpSubnetFilterRule.compareTo(). Valid public IP addresses can bypass the restrictions. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.
CWE: CWE-284: Improper Access Control
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 8.1
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2026-45416
DESCRIPTION: Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, SslClientHelloHandler.decode() reads the 24-bit TLS handshake length and, when the ClientHello does not fit in the first record, eagerly allocates `ctx.alloc().buffer(handshakeLength)` (line 161). The guard at line 140 is `handshakeLength maxClientHelloLength && maxClientHelloLength != 0`, and the commonly-used SniHandler/AbstractSniHandler constructors (SniHandler(Mapping), SniHandler(AsyncMapping), AbstractSniHandler()) pass maxClientHelloLength=0 and handshakeTimeoutMillis=0, so the length guard is disabled and no timeout is scheduled. A 16 MiB request exceeds the default pooled chunk size and becomes a huge/unpooled allocation performed immediately. The buffer is retained in the handler until the channel closes. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.
CWE: CWE-770: Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2026-50010
DESCRIPTION: Netty is a network application framework for development of protocol servers and clients. Prior to versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final, SimpleTrustManagerFactory.engineGetTrustManagers() and related paths wrap any user-supplied plain X509TrustManager in X509TrustManagerWrapper, which extends X509ExtendedTrustManager but implements the 3-arg checkServerTrusted(chain, authType, SSLEngine) by discarding the SSLEngine and calling the 2-arg delegate. Because the object now IS an X509ExtendedTrustManager, neither SunJSSE's internal AbstractTrustManagerWrapper nor Netty's own OpenSslX509TrustManagerWrapper will re-wrap it to add endpoint-identification. Consequently, even though Netty 4.2 sets endpointIdentificationAlgorithm="HTTPS" by default, a client built with `SslContextBuilder.forClient().trustManager(somePlainX509TrustManager)` performs no hostname verification at all. Versions 4.1.135.Final and 4.2.15.Final patch the issue.
CWE: CWE-347: Improper Verification of Cryptographic Signature
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N)
CVEID: CVE-2026-42583
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, Lz4FrameDecoder allocates a ByteBuf of size decompressedLength (up to 32 MB per block) before LZ4 runs. A peer only needs a 21-byte header plus compressedLength payload bytes - 22 bytes if compressedLength == 1 - to force that allocation. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
CVSS Source: security-advisories@github.com
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)
CVEID: CVE-2026-42578
DESCRIPTION: Netty is an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework. Prior to 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final, Netty's HttpProxyHandler constructs HTTP CONNECT requests with header validation explicitly disabled. The newInitialMessage() method creates headers using DefaultHttpHeadersFactory.headersFactory().withValidation(false), then adds user-provided outboundHeaders without any CRLF validation. This allows an attacker who can influence the outbound headers to inject arbitrary HTTP headers into the CONNECT request sent to the proxy server. This vulnerability is fixed in 4.2.13.Final and 4.1.133.Final.
CWE: CWE-113: Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences in HTTP Headers ('HTTP Request/Response Splitting')
CVSS Source: NVD
CVSS Base score: 7.5
CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N)
Affected Products and Versions
| Affected Product(s) | Version(s) |
| IBM webMethods Managed File Transfer (on-prem) | 11.1 |
| IBM webMethods Managed File Transfer (on-prem) | 12.1 |
Remediation/Fixes
IBM strongly recommends addressing the vulnerability now by applying the mentioned core fixes or later core fixes for the related versions
MAT_11.1_Server_Fix5
MAT_12.1_Server_Fix1
Fixes can be downloaded and installed via IBM webMethods Update Manager. Refer to https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7232491
Workarounds and Mitigations
None
Get Notified about Future Security Bulletins
References
Acknowledgement
Change History
06 Aug 2026: Initial Publication
*The CVSS Environment Score is customer environment specific and will ultimately impact the Overall CVSS Score. Customers can evaluate the impact of this vulnerability in their environments by accessing the links in the Reference section of this Security Bulletin.
Disclaimer
According to the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is an "industry open standard designed to convey vulnerability severity and help to determine urgency and priority of response." IBM PROVIDES THE CVSS SCORES ""AS IS"" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CUSTOMERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ANY ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL SECURITY VULNERABILITY. In addition to other efforts to address potential vulnerabilities, IBM periodically updates the record of components contained in our product offerings. As part of that effort, if IBM identifies previously unidentified packages in a product/service inventory, we address relevant vulnerabilities regardless of CVE date. Inclusion of an older CVEID does not demonstrate that the referenced product has been used by IBM since that date, nor that IBM was aware of a vulnerability as of that date. We are making clients aware of relevant vulnerabilities as we become aware of them. "Affected Products and Versions" referenced in IBM Security Bulletins are intended to be only products and versions that are supported by IBM and have not passed their end-of-support or warranty date. Thus, failure to reference unsupported or extended-support products and versions in this Security Bulletin does not constitute a determination by IBM that they are unaffected by the vulnerability. Reference to one or more unsupported versions in this Security Bulletin shall not create an obligation for IBM to provide fixes for any unsupported or extended-support products or versions.
Document Location
Worldwide
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Document Information
Modified date:
06 August 2026
Initial Publish date:
06 August 2026
UID
ibm17282755