How severe is CVE-2024-40642?

CVE-2024-40642 has a CVSS score of 8.1/10, rated HIGH. Immediate patching is strongly recommended.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2024-40642?

CVE-2024-40642 affects the following packages: io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp (Maven). Ecosystems affected: Maven.

How do I fix CVE-2024-40642?

Update io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp to 0.0.13.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-40642 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2024-40642 in my Maven dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate CVE-2024-40642 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

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 does O3 Security protect against CVE-2024-40642?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2024-40642 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2024-40642 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2024-40642 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2024-40642?

CVE-2024-40642 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.7%, placing it in the 47th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

When was CVE-2024-40642 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2024-40642 was published on July 18, 2024 and was last updated on April 2, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

☕ Maven

CVE-2024-40642

HIGH

Absent Input Validation in BinaryHttpParser in the netty incubator codec.bhttp

Also known asGHSA-q8f2-hxq5-cp4h

Published

Jul 18, 2024

Updated

Apr 2, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.7%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk47th percentile-0.03%

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.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

☕io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp

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

The netty incubator codec.bhttp is a java language binary http parser. In affected versions the BinaryHttpParser class does not properly validate input values thus giving attackers almost complete control over the HTTP requests constructed from the parsed output. Attackers can abuse several issues individually to perform various injection attacks including HTTP request smuggling, desync attacks, HTTP header injections, request queue poisoning, caching attacks and Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF). Attacker could also combine several issues to create well-formed messages for other text-based protocols which may result in attacks beyond the HTTP protocol. The BinaryHttpParser class implements the readRequestHead method which performs most of the relevant parsing of the received request. The data structure prefixes values with a variable length integer value. The parsing code below first gets the lengths of the values from the prefixed variable length integer. After it has all of the lengths and calculates all of the indices, the parser casts the applicable slices of the ByteBuf to String. Finally, it passes these values into a new DefaultBinaryHttpRequest object where no further parsing or validation occurs. Method is partially validated while other values are not validated at all. Software that relies on netty to apply input validation for binary HTTP data may be vulnerable to various injection and protocol based attacks. This issue has been addressed in version 0.0.13.Final. Users are advised to upgrade. There are no known workarounds for this vulnerability.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
☕Maven	`io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp`	all versions	0.0.13.Final

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update io.netty.incubator:netty-incubator-codec-bhttp to 0.0.13.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-40642 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2024-40642 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to CVE-2024-40642. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

The netty incubator codec.bhttp is a java language binary http parser. In affected versions the `BinaryHttpParser` class does not properly validate input values thus giving attackers almost complete control over the HTTP requests constructed from the parsed output. Attackers can abuse several issues individually to perform various injection attacks including HTTP request smuggling, desync attacks, HTTP header injections, request queue poisoning, caching attacks and Server Side Request Forgery (SSRF). Attacker could also combine several issues to create well-formed messages for other text-based

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2024-40642 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2024-40642 across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works