CVE-2016-7046 — undertow-core
MEDIUMCVE-2016-7046 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.9) CWE-399 vulnerability in io.undertow:undertow-core. A fix is available for io.undertow:undertow-core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Undertow Uncaught Exception vulnerability
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2016-7046 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,166 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
io.undertow:undertow-core☕io.undertow:undertow-coreReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Maven packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (EAP) 7, when operating as a reverse-proxy with default buffer sizes, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (CPU and disk consumption) via a long URL.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.undertow:undertow-core | ≥ 1.4.0&&< 1.4.3.Final | 1.4.3.Finalio.undertow:undertow-core:1.4.3.Final |
| ☕Maven | io.undertow:undertow-core | all versions | 1.3.25.Finalio.undertow:undertow-core:1.3.25.Final |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.undertow:undertow-core, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update io.undertow:undertow-core to 1.4.3.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2016-7046 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2016-7046 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2016-7046. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat JBoss EAP 7 | see advisory | RHSA-2016:2657 |
| Red Hat JBoss EAP 7 | see advisory | RHSA-2017:3456 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.0 for RHEL 6 | eap7-hibernate-0:5.0.11-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep7.el6 | RHSA-2016:2640 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.0 for RHEL 6 | eap7-jboss-ec2-eap-0:7.0.3-3.GA_redhat_2.ep7.el6 | RHSA-2016:2642 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.0 for RHEL 7 | eap7-hibernate-0:5.0.11-1.Final_redhat_1.1.ep7.el7 | RHSA-2016:2641 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 for RHEL 6 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:1.5.5.008-1.redhat_1.1.ep7.el6 | RHSA-2017:3454 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 for RHEL 6 | eap7-jboss-ec2-eap-0:7.1.0-5.GA_redhat_5.ep7.el6 | RHSA-2017:3458 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 for RHEL 7 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:1.5.5.008-1.redhat_1.1.ep7.el7 | RHSA-2017:3455 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2016-7046 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2016-7046 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.