CVE-2026-68498 Vulnerability Analysis & Exploit Details

CVE-2026-68498 Vulnerability Summary

CVE-2026-68498: StreamReadConstraints.maxNameLength (default 50,000 characters) is intended to bound how much memory a single JSON Object property name can consume while being parsed, independently of the much larger maxStringLength (default 100,000,000 characters) that bounds ordinary string values. For parsers built over character input — Reader, String or char[] sources, all served by ReaderBasedJsonParser — that bound is not applied while the name is being accumulated. The code path instead re-uses the string-value length check, which is roughly 2000x larger by default. In the character-input slow path, ReaderBasedJsonParser._parseName2() accumulates the name into the TextBuffer and, when a segment fills, calls TextBuffer.finishCurrentSegment(), which validates only maxStringLength. The correct check, StreamReadConstraints.validateNameLength(int), is reached afterwards in CharsToNameCanonicalizer.findSymbol(), once the entire name has been scanned to its closing quote. By that point the full name — up to maxStringLength characters — has already been buffered in memory. A remote attacker who can have a single sufficiently long JSON Object property name parsed through this path can force allocation on the order of 100,000,000 characters (approximately 200 MB, with segment bookkeeping pushing real peak usage higher) before any StreamConstraintsException is thrown, instead of the approximately 50,000-character (about 100 KB) bound the API promises. Repeating this across concurrent requests can exhaust the heap and crash the process. No authentication or user interaction is required. Because StreamReadConstraints.maxDocumentLength is disabled by default (-1), nothing else bounds the token first, so the issue is exploitable under default configuration. Byte-input parsers are not affected: UTF8StreamJsonParser, UTF8DataInputJsonParser and the non-blocking (async) parsers re-validate maxNameLength on every growth of the name-decode buffer via ParserBase._growNameDecodeBuffer(), rejecting an oversized name after allocating only tens of kilobytes. Applications are exposed when untrusted JSON is parsed from a String, Reader or char[] — for example an HTTP request body already read into a String — rather than from raw UTF-8 bytes. This issue affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-core from 2.16.0 and tools.jackson.core:jackson-core from 3.0.0. Releases before 2.16.0 are not affected, because StreamReadConstraints.maxNameLength was first introduced in jackson-core 2.16.0.

CVE-2026-68498 References

External References

• https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-core/blob/2.x/release-notes/VERSION-2.x
• https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-core/blob/3.x/release-notes/VERSION
• https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-core/commit/2cd206de1163e3fcff7bdaca425274f00668b075
• https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-core/pull/1643
• https://github.com/FasterXML/jackson-core/security/advisories/GHSA-649p-m576-vr99

CWE Common Weakness Enumeration

CAPEC Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification

• XML Ping of the Death CAPEC-147 An attacker initiates a resource depletion attack where a large number of small XML messages are delivered at a sufficiently rapid rate to cause a denial of service or crash of the target. Transactions such as repetitive SOAP transactions can deplete resources faster than a simple flooding attack because of the additional resources used by the SOAP protocol and the resources necessary to process SOAP messages. The transactions used are immaterial as long as they cause resource utilization on the target. In other words, this is a normal flooding attack augmented by using messages that will require extra processing on the target.
• Sustained Client Engagement CAPEC-227 An adversary attempts to deny legitimate users access to a resource by continually engaging a specific resource in an attempt to keep the resource tied up as long as possible. The adversary's primary goal is not to crash or flood the target, which would alert defenders; rather it is to repeatedly perform actions or abuse algorithmic flaws such that a given resource is tied up and not available to a legitimate user. By carefully crafting a requests that keep the resource engaged through what is seemingly benign requests, legitimate users are limited or completely denied access to the resource.
• Regular Expression Exponential Blowup CAPEC-492 An adversary may execute an attack on a program that uses a poor Regular Expression(Regex) implementation by choosing input that results in an extreme situation for the Regex. A typical extreme situation operates at exponential time compared to the input size. This is due to most implementations using a Nondeterministic Finite Automaton(NFA) state machine to be built by the Regex algorithm since NFA allows backtracking and thus more complex regular expressions.

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