NIST deprecates RSA-2048 from 2030. Find every one of them before attackers do.
☕
☕ Maven
Not in CISA KEV
HIGH severity

CVE-2021-28165 — jetty-server

HIGH

CVE-2021-28165 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server. 1 public exploit or proof-of-concept reference is indexed, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server — see the affected versions and patch details below.

Jetty vulnerable to incorrect handling of invalid large TLS frame, exhausting CPU resources

Also known asBIT-jenkins-2021-28165GHSA-26vr-8j45-3r4w
Published
Updated
Affected
3 pkgs
Patched
3 / 3
Exploits
1 known
Exploitation data as of Nov 2, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Exploitation Status

No confirmed exploitation observed yet

  • CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
  • CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.

Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2021-28165.

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗
53.9%probability of exploitation in next 30 days
High Risk0.00%
Lower risk than most CVEs99th percentile — riskier than 99% of all scored CVEsHighest risk
0.00%22.1%44.3%66.4%12.0%53.9%May 26Sep 26Nov 26

Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.

How urgent is this, really

Where this sits among everything scored

Real-World Exposure

3 pkgs affected
☕org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server☕org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server☕org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server

Real-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

Impact

When using SSL/TLS with Jetty, either with HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, or WebSocket, the server may receive an invalid large (greater than 17408) TLS frame that is incorrectly handled, causing CPU resources to eventually reach 100% usage.

Workarounds

The problem can be worked around by compiling the following class:

package org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072;

import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngine;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngineResult;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLException;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException;

import org.eclipse.jetty.io.EndPoint;
import org.eclipse.jetty.io.ssl.SslConnection;
import org.eclipse.jetty.server.Connector;
import org.eclipse.jetty.server.SslConnectionFactory;
import org.eclipse.jetty.util.BufferUtil;
import org.eclipse.jetty.util.annotation.Name;
import org.eclipse.jetty.util.ssl.SslContextFactory;

public class SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory extends SslConnectionFactory
{
    public SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory(@Name("sslContextFactory") SslContextFactory factory, @Name("next") String nextProtocol)
    {
        super(factory, nextProtocol);
    }

    @Override
    protected SslConnection newSslConnection(Connector connector, EndPoint endPoint, SSLEngine engine)
    {
        return new SslConnection(connector.getByteBufferPool(), connector.getExecutor(), endPoint, engine, isDirectBuffersForEncryption(), isDirectBuffersForDecryption())
        {
            @Override
            protected SSLEngineResult unwrap(SSLEngine sslEngine, ByteBuffer input, ByteBuffer output) throws SSLException
            {
                SSLEngineResult results = super.unwrap(sslEngine, input, output);

                if ((results.getStatus() == SSLEngineResult.Status.BUFFER_UNDERFLOW ||
                    results.getStatus() == SSLEngineResult.Status.OK && results.bytesConsumed() == 0 && results.bytesProduced() == 0) &&
                    BufferUtil.space(input) == 0)
                {
                    BufferUtil.clear(input);
                    throw new SSLHandshakeException("Encrypted buffer max length exceeded");
                }
                return results;
            }
        };
    }
}

This class can be deployed by:

  • The resulting class file should be put into a jar file (eg sslfix6072.jar)
  • The jar file should be made available to the server. For a normal distribution this can be done by putting the file into ${jetty.base}/lib
  • Copy the file ${jetty.home}/modules/ssl.mod to ${jetty.base}/modules
  • Edit the ${jetty.base}/modules/ssl.mod file to have the following section:
[lib]
lib/sslfix6072.jar
  • Copy the file ${jetty.home}/etc/jetty-https.xml and${jetty.home}/etc/jetty-http2.xml to ${jetty.base}/etc
  • Edit files ${jetty.base}/etc/jetty-https.xml and ${jetty.base}/etc/jetty-http2.xml, changing any reference of org.eclipse.jetty.server.SslConnectionFactory to org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072.SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory. For example:
  <Call name="addIfAbsentConnectionFactory">
    <Arg>
      <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072.SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory">
        <Arg name="next">http/1.1</Arg>
        <Arg name="sslContextFactory"><Ref refid="sslContextFactory"/></Arg>
      </New>
    </Arg>
  </Call>
  • Restart Jetty

Affected Packages

3 total 3 fixed
EcosystemPackageVulnerable rangeFix
☕Mavenorg.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server≥ 7.2.2&&< 9.4.399.4.39org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server:9.4.39
☕Mavenorg.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server≥ 10.0.0&&< 10.0.210.0.2org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server:10.0.2
☕Mavenorg.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server≥ 11.0.0&&< 11.0.211.0.2org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server:11.0.2

Affected Products

21 products · 24 configurations
Application
jettyeclipse
≥ 11.0.0 && < 11.0.2
range
Application
jenkinsjenkins
< 2.286
range
Application
cloud managernetapp
< 3.9.8
range
Application
e-series performance analyzernetapp
< 3.0
range
Application
e-series santricity os controllernetapp
≥ 11.0.0 && < 11.70.1
range
Application
e-series santricity storagenetapp
< 1.10
range
Exploits & PoCs
1

Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency
  1. Detect

    Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.

  2. Fix

    Update org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server to 9.4.39 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2021-28165 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

  3. 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.

Red HatModerate

In OpenShift Container Platform (OCP), the hive/presto/hadoop components that comprise the OCP metering stack, ship the vulnerable version of jetty. Since the release of OCP 4.6, the metering product has been deprecated [1], hence the affected components are marked as wontfix. This may be fixed in the future. [1]…

ProductFixed inAdvisory
Red Hat AMQ 7.8.2jetty-serverRHSA-2021:2689
Red Hat AMQ 7.9.0see advisoryRHSA-2021:3700
Red Hat AMQ Streams 1.6.4see advisoryRHSA-2021:1560
Red Hat AMQ Streams 1.8.0jetty-serverRHSA-2021:3225
Red Hat Developer Toolsrh-eclipse-jetty-0:9.4.40-1.1.el7_9RHSA-2021:1509
Red Hat Fuse 7.9jettyRHSA-2021:3140
Red Hat Integration Camel Quarkus 2see advisoryRHSA-2021:4767
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.7jenkins-0:2.277.3.1620393611-1.el8RHSA-2021:1551

Frequently Asked Questions

### Impact When using SSL/TLS with Jetty, either with HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, or WebSocket, the server may receive an invalid large (greater than 17408) TLS frame that is incorrectly handled, causing CPU resources to eventually reach 100% usage. ### Workarounds The problem can be worked around by compiling the following class: ```java package org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072; import java.nio.ByteBuffer; import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngine; import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngineResult; import javax.net.ssl.SSLException; import javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException; import org.eclipse.jetty.io.EndPoint; impo
O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2021-28165 in your dependencies?

Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.

CVE-2021-28165: jetty-server — Fixed in 9.4.39