How severe is GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv?

GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv has a CVSS score of 5.5/10, rated MEDIUM. Review your exposure and patch according to your risk tolerance.

Which packages are affected by GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv?

GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv affects the following packages: io.netty:netty-common (Maven). Ecosystems affected: Maven.

How do I fix GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv?

Update io.netty:netty-common to 4.1.115.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv in my Maven dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for io.netty:netty-common. 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 GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv 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 GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv?

O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv 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 GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv 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 GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv?

GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.4%, placing it in the 32th 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.

What type of vulnerability is GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv?

GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv is classified as Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (CWE-400). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv published, and has it been updated?

GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv was published on November 12, 2024 and was last updated on February 4, 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

GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv

MEDIUM

Denial of Service attack on windows app using netty

Also known asCVE-2024-47535

Published

Nov 12, 2024

Updated

Feb 4, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.4%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk32th percentile-0.07%

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:netty-common

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

Summary

An unsafe reading of environment file could potentially cause a denial of service in Netty. When loaded on an Windows application, Netty attemps to load a file that does not exist. If an attacker creates such a large file, the Netty application crash.

Details

When the library netty is loaded in a java windows application, the library tries to identify the system environnement in which it is executed.

At this stage, Netty tries to load both /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release even though it is in a Windows environment.

If netty finds this files, it reads them and loads them into memory.

By default :

The JVM maximum memory size is set to 1 GB,
A non-privileged user can create a directory at C:\ and create files within it.

the source code identified : https://github.com/netty/netty/blob/4.1/common/src/main/java/io/netty/util/internal/PlatformDependent.java

Despite the implementation of the function normalizeOs() the source code not verify the OS before reading C:\etc\os-release and C:\usr\lib\os-release.

PoC

Create a file larger than 1 GB of data in C:\etc\os-release or C:\usr\lib\os-release on a Windows environnement and start your Netty application.

To observe what the application does with the file, the security analyst used "Process Monitor" from the "Windows SysInternals" suite. (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/)

cd C:\etc
fsutil file createnew os-release 3000000000

The source code used is the Netty website code example : Echo ‐ the very basic client and server.

The vulnerability was tested on the 4.1.112.Final version.

The security analyst tried the same technique for C:\proc\sys\net\core\somaxconn with a lot of values to impact Netty but the only things that works is the "larger than 1 GB file" technique. https://github.com/netty/netty/blob/c0fdb8e9f8f256990e902fcfffbbe10754d0f3dd/common/src/main/java/io/netty/util/NetUtil.java#L186

Impact

By loading the "file larger than 1 GB" into the memory, the Netty library exceeds the JVM memory limit and causes a crash in the java Windows application.

This behaviour occurs 100% of the time in both Server mode and Client mode if the large file exists.

Client mode :

Server mode :

somaxconn :

Severity

Attack vector : "Local" because the attacker needs to be on the system where the Netty application is running.
Attack complexity : "Low" because the attacker only need to create a massive file (regardless of its contents).
Privileges required : "Low" because the attacker requires a user account to exploit the vulnerability.
User intercation : "None" because the administrator don't need to accidentally click anywhere to trigger the vulnerability. Furthermore, the exploitation works with defaults windows/AD settings.
Scope : "Unchanged" because only Netty is affected by the vulnerability.
Confidentiality : "None" because no data is exposed through exploiting the vulnerability.
Integrity : "None" because the explotation of the vulnerability does not allow editing, deleting or adding data elsewhere.
Availability : "High" because the exploitation of this vulnerability crashes the entire java application.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
☕Maven	`io.netty:netty-common`	all versions	4.1.115.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:netty-common. 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-common to 4.1.115.Final or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv 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-xq3w-v528-46rv 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-xq3w-v528-46rv. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

### Summary An unsafe reading of environment file could potentially cause a denial of service in Netty. When loaded on an Windows application, Netty attemps to load a file that does not exist. If an attacker creates such a large file, the Netty application crash. ### Details When the library netty is loaded in a java windows application, the library tries to identify the system environnement in which it is executed. At this stage, Netty tries to load both `/etc/os-release` and `/usr/lib/os-release` even though it is in a Windows environment. <img width="364" alt="1" src="https://github.

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv in your dependencies?

O3 detects GHSA-xq3w-v528-46rv across Maven dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

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