CVE-2019-14888 — undertow-core
HIGHCVE-2019-14888 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in io.undertow:undertow-core. A fix is available for io.undertow:undertow-core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Undertow vulnerable to Uncontrolled Resource Consumption
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-2019-14888 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 378,567 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-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
A vulnerability was found in the Undertow HTTP server in versions before 2.0.28.SP1 when listening on HTTPS. An attacker can target the HTTPS port to carry out a Denial Of Service (DOS) to make the service unavailable on SSL.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.undertow:undertow-core | all versions | 2.0.29.Finalio.undertow:undertow-core:2.0.29.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 2.0.29.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2019-14888 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-2019-14888 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2019-14888. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| EAP-CD 19 Tech Preview | undertow | RHSA-2020:2333 |
| Red Hat Data Grid 7.3.5 | undertow | RHSA-2020:0729 |
| Red Hat Fuse 7.7.0 | undertow | RHSA-2020:3192 |
| Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 | undertow-core | RHSA-2020:0164 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 EUS for RHEL 7 | eap7-undertow-0:1.4.18-12.SP12_redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7 | RHSA-2024:5856 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 for RHEL 6 | eap7-apache-cxf-0:3.2.11-1.redhat_00001.1.el6eap | RHSA-2020:0159 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 for RHEL 7 | eap7-apache-cxf-0:3.2.11-1.redhat_00001.1.el7eap | RHSA-2020:0160 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 for RHEL 8 | eap7-apache-cxf-0:3.2.11-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap | RHSA-2020:0161 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2019-14888 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2019-14888 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.