Apache Neethi is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack through algorithmic complexity in policy normalization. Specially crafted WS-Policy documents can trigger an exponential Cartesian cross-product expansion during the normalization process, causing unbounded memory allocation that exhausts the JVM heap. This occurs when the normalization process generates an excessive number of policy alternatives without bounds, leading to runtime memory exhaustion. Users should upgrade to 3.2.2 which limits the maximum number of normalized policy alternatives.
| Vendor | Product | Version(s) | CPE |
|---|---|---|---|
< 3.2.2CPE matchmatch criteria | cpe:2.3:a:apache:neethi:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* |
CVSS version used by this source: 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.0 Twitter, 0.0 Reddit, 0.1 Bluesky, 0.1 Mastodon, and 0.4 GitHub mentions.
The average CVE in this peer group has 0.1 InfoSec Media, 0.0 Vendor Blog, and 0.0 Security Researcher mentions.
CVE-2026-42402: Apache Neethi: Policy Normalization Unbounded Resource Allocation DoS
May 1, 2026Apache Neethi is vulnerable to a Denial of Service attack through algorithmic complexity in policy normalization
May 1, 2026