CVE-2026-28368 — undertow-parent
HIGHCVE-2026-28368 is a high-severity (CVSS 8.7) CWE-444 vulnerability in io.undertow:undertow-parent. No vendor fix is recorded yet; mitigation options are listed below.
Undertow is Vulnerable to HTTP Request/Response Smuggling
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
- 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-2026-28368.
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-2026-28368 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 377,636 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-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. This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to construct specially crafted requests where header names are parsed differently by Undertow compared to upstream proxies. This discrepancy in header interpretation can be exploited to launch request smuggling attacks, potentially bypassing security controls and accessing unauthorized resources.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.undertow:undertow-parent | all versions | No fix |
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-parent, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Remediation status
No patched version of io.undertow:undertow-parent has shipped for CVE-2026-28368 yet. Where your build allows, override or pin the dependency away from the vulnerable range, and apply any maintainer-recommended mitigation.
Mitigate without a patch
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-2026-28368 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-28368. 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.
This flaw in Undertow's header parsing logic allows for request smuggling attacks when Undertow is deployed behind an upstream proxy. Crafted requests can bypass security controls by being interpreted differently by Undertow and the proxy, potentially leading to unauthorized access or cache poisoning.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8.1.7.GA | io.undertow/undertow-core:2.3.24.SP3-redhat-00001 | RHSA-2026:25126 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8.1 for RHEL 8 | eap8-activemq-artemis-0:2.40.0-7.redhat_00015.1.el8eap | RHSA-2026:25125 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-28368 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-28368 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.