CVE-2020-10705 — undertow-core
HIGHCVE-2020-10705 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-770 vulnerability in io.undertow:undertow-core. A fix is available for io.undertow:undertow-core — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling in Undertow
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2020-10705 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,738 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
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 flaw was discovered in Undertow in versions before Undertow 2.1.1.Final where certain requests to the "Expect: 100-continue" header may cause an out of memory error. This flaw may potentially lead to a denial of service.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.undertow:undertow-core | all versions | 2.1.1.Finalio.undertow:undertow-core:2.1.1.Final |
Affected Products
oncommand insightnetappjboss enterprise application platformredhatopenshift application runtimesredhatundertowredhatDetection & 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 2.1.1.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2020-10705 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Cap what an attacker can consume: apply request size, rate and timeout limits in front of the affected component, and run it with memory and CPU limits so exhaustion degrades one worker rather than the whole service.
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.
There is currently no known mitigation for this security flaw.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2020-10705 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| EAP-CD 20 Tech Preview | undertow | RHSA-2020:3585 |
| Red Hat JBoss EAP 7 | see advisory | RHSA-2020:2515 |
| Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 | undertow-core | RHSA-2020:2061 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 EUS for RHEL 7 | eap7-apache-commons-beanutils-0:1.11.0-1.redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7 | RHSA-2025:16668 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 for RHEL 6 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-4.redhat_00010.1.el6eap | RHSA-2020:2058 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 for RHEL 7 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-4.redhat_00010.1.el7eap | RHSA-2020:2059 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 for RHEL 8 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-4.redhat_00010.1.el8eap | RHSA-2020:2060 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 for RHEL 6 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.9.0-4.redhat_00010.1.el6eap | RHSA-2020:2511 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2020-10705 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.