CVE-2026-68497
HighCVSS 7.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk46th percentile - higher than 46% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in jackson-databind allows XML datatype deserializers (Duration, XMLGregorianCalendar) to pass raw JSON strings directly to BigInteger/BigDecimal constructors, which are quadratic in digit count. Because the digits are inside a string token rather than a number token, the StreamReadConstraints.maxNumberLength guard does not apply, enabling an attacker to cause excessive CPU consumption with a single request.
Risk Assessment
An unauthenticated attacker can send a few concurrent requests with very long Duration values, exhausting server worker threads and causing a denial of service (DoS). The vulnerability affects default ObjectMapper/JsonMapper configurations without any opt-in.
Recommendation
Upgrade jackson-databind to version 2.18.10, 2.21.6, 2.22.2, 3.1.6, or 3.2.2 depending on the branch in use. Until patched, consider limiting incoming request sizes and monitoring for unusual CPU usage.
Other vulnerabilities in jackson-databind
See all- CVE-2026-110879Critical
A vulnerability in jackson-databind allows bypassing generic-argument validation: only the outer class of a type ID is checked, while attacker-selected classes inside generic arguments are accepted. This enables deserialization of dangerous classes (e.g., HashMap<FileSystemXmlApplicationContext,String>) even with a validator enabled, potentially leading to remote code execution. Affects versions 2.10.0+ and 3.0.0+; it is an incomplete fix for CVE-2026-54512.
- CVE-2021-20190High
A flaw in jackson-databind before 2.9.10.7 mishandles the interaction between serialization gadgets and typing. The highest threat is to data confidentiality, integrity, and system availability.
- CVE-2020-11620High
FasterXML jackson-databind 2.x before 2.9.10.4 mishandles the interaction between serialization gadgets and typing, related to org.apache.commons.jelly.impl.Embedded (aka commons-jelly). This may allow an attacker to perform dangerous operations during deserialization.
- CVE-2019-14893Critical
A flaw was discovered in FasterXML jackson-databind in all versions before 2.9.10 and 2.10.0, where it would permit polymorphic deserialization of malicious objects using the xalan JNDI gadget when used in conjunction with polymorphic type handling methods such as `enableDefaultTyping()` or when @JsonTypeInfo is using `Id.CLASS` or `Id.MINIMAL_CLASS` or in any other way which ObjectMapper.readValue might instantiate objects from unsafe sources. An attacker could use this flaw to execute arbitrary code.
- CVE-2019-14892Critical
A flaw was discovered in jackson-databind in versions before 2.9.10, 2.8.11.5 and 2.6.7.3, which would permit polymorphic deserialization of a malicious object using commons-configuration 1 and 2 JNDI classes. An attacker could use this flaw to execute arbitrary code.
- CVE-2020-9547Critical
FasterXML jackson-databind 2.x before 2.9.10.4 mishandles the interaction between serialization gadgets and typing, related to com.ibatis.sqlmap.engine.transaction.jta.JtaTransactionConfig (aka ibatis-sqlmap).
- CVE-2020-8840Critical
FasterXML jackson-databind 2.0.0 through 2.9.10.2 lacks certain xbean-reflect/JNDI blocking, as demonstrated by org.apache.xbean.propertyeditor.JndiConverter. This may allow remote code execution.
- CVE-2019-20330Critical
FasterXML jackson-databind 2.x before 2.9.10.2 lacks certain net.sf.ehcache blocking. This may allow an attacker to abuse polymorphic deserialization to perform dangerous operations.
- CVE-2019-17531Critical
A Polymorphic Typing issue was discovered in FasterXML jackson-databind 2.0.0 through 2.9.10. When Default Typing is enabled (either globally or for a specific property) for an externally exposed JSON endpoint and the service has the apache-log4j-extra (version 1.2.x) jar in the classpath, and an attacker can provide a JNDI service to access, it is possible to make the service execute a malicious payload.
- CVE-2019-17267Critical
A Polymorphic Typing issue was discovered in FasterXML jackson-databind before 2.9.10. It is related to net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.EhcacheJtaTransactionManagerLookup.
Original NVD description (English source)
jackson-databind binds a JSON string to a javax.xml.datatype.Duration or javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar field by passing the raw string verbatim to DatatypeFactory.newDuration(value) or newXMLGregorianCalendar(value) in CoreXMLDeserializers.Std._deserialize. These deserializers are registered by default with no opt-in, so a plain ObjectMapper or JsonMapper with no polymorphic typing and no special configuration reaches this path. The XML Schema lexical grammar permits numeric components of arbitrary length, which the JDK materializes through the native BigInteger(String) and BigDecimal(String) constructors, both quadratic in digit count. Because the digits sit inside a JSON string token rather than a JSON number token, jackson-core's StreamReadConstraints.maxNumberLength guard never applies; jackson's own NumberDeserializers call validateIntegerLength or validateFPLength before parsing a stringified number, but the XML datatype deserializer omits that pre-check. An unauthenticated attacker can therefore submit a single request of a few megabytes, such as a Duration value consisting of the letter P followed by several million digits and the letter Y, and force tens of seconds to several minutes of single-threaded CPU work; a handful of concurrent requests can saturate a server's worker threads. This affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind from 2.0.0 before 2.18.10, from 2.19.0 before 2.21.6, and from 2.22.0 before 2.22.2, and tools.jackson.core:jackson-databind from 3.0.0 before 3.1.6 and from 3.2.0 before 3.2.2. Users should upgrade to 2.18.10, 2.21.6, 2.22.2, 3.1.6, or 3.2.2.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS