CVE-2026-68496
HighCVSS 7.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Elevated risk50th percentile - higher than 50% of all known CVEs
Summary
The Smile parser in FasterXML jackson-dataformats-binary never invokes StreamReadConstraints.validateNameLength() when decoding JSON object property names, so the maxNameLength limit is not enforced for this format. An attacker who can have a Smile document parsed may embed a property name of unbounded length, causing memory exhaustion and denial of service. This issue also affects the CBOR parser and is tracked in advisory GHSA-3v8f-v6vx-fmrm.
Risk Assessment
The organization is exposed to a DoS attack by sending a specially crafted Smile document to a parsing endpoint. No special privileges are required beyond the ability to submit data, making the vulnerability easy to exploit by external attackers.
Recommendation
Update jackson-dataformats-binary to a patched version as described in GHSA-3v8f-v6vx-fmrm. If updating is not possible, restrict access to Smile/CBOR parsing endpoints and monitor memory usage.
Other vulnerabilities in jackson-dataformats-binary
Original NVD description (English source)
The Smile parser in FasterXML jackson-dataformats-binary never invokes StreamReadConstraints.validateNameLength() when decoding JSON object property names, so the maxNameLength limit is not enforced for this format. SmileParser._handleLongFieldName() grows its internal name buffer through an unconstrained _growArrayTo() call and performs no length validation. An attacker who can have a Smile document parsed may therefore embed a single property name of unbounded length; the parser buffers the whole name in memory before returning it, whatever maxNameLength is configured to. Because StreamReadConstraints.maxDocumentLength is also disabled by default, nothing else bounds the name under default settings, so the only limits are the attacker's upload capacity and available heap, leading to memory exhaustion and denial of service. No privileges beyond the ability to submit data to a parsing endpoint are required, and exploitation needs only that the bytes reach SmileFactory parsing, directly or through an ObjectMapper configured with the Smile module. jackson-core's own JSON parsers enforce maxNameLength incrementally during name decoding; this gap is specific to the binary formats. maxNameLength and validateNameLength were introduced in jackson-core 2.16.0, so releases before 2.16.0 do not contain the constraint that is left unenforced. This issue is tracked together with the CBOR parser defect in the same vendor advisory, GHSA-3v8f-v6vx-fmrm, which covers both binary formats. The Smile parser defect (jackson-dataformats-binary issue #726) is CVE-2026-68496; the CBOR parser defect (issue #725) is assigned CVE-2026-68495.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

