CVE-2026-42403 — neethi
HIGHCVE-2026-42403 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in org.apache.neethi:neethi. A fix is available for org.apache.neethi:neethi — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Apache Neethi: Circular Policy Reference Infinite Loop
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-2026-42403.
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-2026-42403 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
org.apache.neethi:neethiReal-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
Apache Neethi does not properly detect circular references in policy definitions. When a WS-Policy document contains circular policy references (where Policy A references Policy B which references Policy A), the policy normalization process can enter an infinite loop or cause excessive recursion, leading to a stack overflow or application hang. An attacker can craft malicious policy documents with circular references to cause a Denial of Service condition
Users are recommended to upgrade to version 3.2.2, which fixes this issue.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.apache.neethi:neethi | all versions | 3.2.2org.apache.neethi:neethi:3.2.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.apache.neethi:neethi, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.apache.neethi:neethi to 3.2.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-42403 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2026-42403 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-42403. 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 Moderate flaw in Apache Neethi allows a remote attacker to trigger a Denial of Service condition. By crafting malicious WS-Policy documents with circular references, an attacker can cause the policy normalization process to enter an infinite loop or excessive recursion, leading to application instability or a…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Build of Apache Camel 4.14 for Quarkus 3.27 | neethi | RHSA-2026:19835 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-42403 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-42403 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.