GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server. A fix is available for org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server — see the affected versions and patch details below.
OutOfMemoryError for large multipart without filename in Eclipse Jetty
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-qw69-rqj8-6qw8.
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-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 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 377,166 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.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server☕org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server☕org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-serverReal-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
Servlets with multipart support (e.g. annotated with @MultipartConfig) that call HttpServletRequest.getParameter() or HttpServletRequest.getParts() may cause OutOfMemoryError when the client sends a multipart request with a part that has a name but no filename and a very large content.
This happens even with the default settings of fileSizeThreshold=0 which should stream the whole part content to disk.
An attacker client may send a large multipart request and cause the server to throw OutOfMemoryError.
However, the server may be able to recover after the OutOfMemoryError and continue its service -- although it may take some time.
A very large number of parts may cause the same problem.
Patches
Patched in Jetty versions
- 9.4.51.v20230217 - via PR #9345
- 10.0.14 - via PR #9344
- 11.0.14 - via PR #9344
Workarounds
Multipart parameter maxRequestSize must be set to a non-negative value, so the whole multipart content is limited (although still read into memory).
Limiting multipart parameter maxFileSize won't be enough because an attacker can send a large number of parts that summed up will cause memory issues.
References
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☕Maven | org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server | all versions | 9.4.51.v20230217org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server:9.4.51.v20230217 |
| ☕Maven | org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server | ≥ 10.0.0&&< 10.0.14 | 10.0.14org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server:10.0.14 |
| ☕Maven | org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server | ≥ 11.0.0&&< 11.0.14 | 11.0.14org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server:11.0.14 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server to 9.4.51.v20230217 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 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 GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8. 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.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| OCP-Tools-4.12-RHEL-8 | jenkins-0:2.426.3.1706515686-3.el8 | RHSA-2024:0778 |
| Red Hat AMQ Streams 2.5.0 | see advisory | RHSA-2023:5165 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 8 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.16.0-17.redhat_00051.1.el8eap | RHSA-2023:7638 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 for RHEL 9 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.16.0-17.redhat_00051.1.el9eap | RHSA-2023:7639 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.4 on RHEL 7 | eap7-activemq-artemis-0:2.16.0-17.redhat_00051.1.el7eap | RHSA-2023:7637 |
| Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Expansion Pack | jetty-server | RHSA-2024:3385 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7 | jetty-server | RHSA-2024:0804 |
| Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.6 for RHEL 7 | rh-sso7-keycloak-0:18.0.12-1.redhat_00001.1.el7sso | RHSA-2024:0798 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 across Maven dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.