GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm
HIGHGHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-401 vulnerability in io.netty:netty-codec-redis. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
Netty's Lack of Lifecycle Cleanup Leads to Pooled ByteBuf Leak in RedisArrayAggregator
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 GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm.
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
GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm 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 0 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.netty:netty-codec-redis☕io.netty:netty-codec-redisReal-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
The RedisArrayAggregator handler permanently leaks pooled direct-memory buffers when a Redis pipeline connection closes before a RESP array aggregate completes. The handler retains child messages in per-handler state (depths field) but defines no channelInactive, handlerRemoved, or exceptionCaught method to release them when the pipeline tears down. Because the leaked buffers are slices of PooledByteBufAllocator chunks, they prevent those chunks from being returned to the JVM-wide direct-memory pool. Repeated connection churn by any network peer monotonically drains this shared pool, eventually causing allocation failures on all Netty channels in the process.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | io.netty:netty-codec-redis | ≥ 4.2.0.Final&&< 4.2.15.Final | 4.2.15.Final |
| ☕Maven | io.netty:netty-codec-redis | all versions | 4.1.135.Final |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.netty:netty-codec-redis. 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:netty-codec-redis to 4.2.15.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm 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 GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm 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 GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm. 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 is an Important denial of service vulnerability in Netty's RedisArrayAggregator. Repeated connection churn by a network peer can lead to a permanent leak of direct-memory buffers, eventually exhausting the JVM-wide direct-memory pool. This can cause allocation failures across all Netty channels, impacting the…
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-6jv9-x5w9-2ccm across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.