CVE-2023-3223 — undertow-parent
HIGHCVE-2023-3223 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-789 vulnerability in io.undertow:undertow-parent. A fix is available for io.undertow:undertow-parent — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Undertow: outofmemoryerror due to @multipartconfig handling
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-2023-3223.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
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
io.undertow:undertow-parentReal-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 found in undertow. Servlets annotated with @MultipartConfig may cause an OutOfMemoryError due to large multipart content. This may allow unauthorized users to cause remote Denial of Service (DoS) attack. If the server uses fileSizeThreshold to limit the file size, it's possible to bypass the limit by setting the file name in the request to null.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.undertow:undertow-parent | all versions | 2.2.24.Finalio.undertow:undertow-parent:2.2.24.Final |
Affected Products
jboss enterprise application platformredhatjboss enterprise application platform text-only advisoriesredhatopenshift container platformredhatopenshift container platform for ibm linuxoneredhatopenshift container platform for powerredhatsingle sign-onredhatDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.undertow:undertow-parent, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update io.undertow:undertow-parent to 2.2.24.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2023-3223 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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Fuse 7.12.1 | undertow | RHSA-2023:7247 |
| Red Hat Fuse 7.13.0 | undertow | RHSA-2024:3354 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform | io.undertow/undertow-core:2.2.25.SP3-redhat-00001 | RHSA-2023:4509 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 EUS for RHEL 7 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:1.5.5.016-1.redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7 | RHSA-2025:4226 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.3 EUS for RHEL 7 | eap7-jackson-annotations-0:2.10.4-3.redhat_00006.1.el7eap | RHSA-2025:9583 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 8 | eap7-undertow-0:2.2.25-3.SP3_redhat_00001.1.el8eap | RHSA-2023:4506 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 9 | eap7-undertow-0:2.2.25-3.SP3_redhat_00001.1.el9eap | RHSA-2023:4507 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 on RHEL 7 | eap7-undertow-0:2.2.25-3.SP3_redhat_00001.1.el7eap | RHSA-2023:4505 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2023-3223 in your dependencies?
Find it across Maven, including transitive dependencies.