snappy-java's missing upper bound check on chunk length can lead to Denial of Service (DoS) impact

Exploitation

No confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next marks exploitation only from CISA KEV.

CVSS

7.5 · CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

EPSS

• CVE-2023-43642: 1.21% estimated exploitation activity in the next 30 days; percentile 68.50 (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-03). This is a model estimate, not proof of exploitation or customer exposure.

As published by the source; long descriptions are shortened.

Summary snappy-java is a data compression library in Java. Its SnappyInputStream was found to be vulnerable to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks when decompressing data with a too-large chunk size. Due to missing upper bound check on chunk length, an unrecoverable fatal error can occur. Scope All versions of snappy-java including the latest released version 1.1.10.3. A fix is applied in 1.1.10.4 Details While performing mitigation efforts related to CVE-2023-34455 in Confluent products, our Application Security team closely analyzed the fix that was accepted and merged into snappy-java version 1.1.10.1 in this commit. The check on line 421 only attempts to check if chunkSize is not a negative value. We believe that this is an inadequate fix as it misses an upper-bounds check for overly positive values such as 0x7FFFFFFF (or (2,147,483,647 in decimal) before actually attempting to allocate the provided unverified number of bytes via the “chunkSize” variable. This missing upper-bounds…

Published by the source

25 Sep 2023, 18:30 UTC

Last modified by the source

7 Nov 2023, 05:05 UTC

Source last checked

26 Oct 2026, 16:16 UTC

1. Revision 1 · created · 26 Oct 2026

   Published from ghsa record GHSA-55g7-9cwv-5qfv

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# Patch Next advisory brief: CVE-2023-43642

Advisory: snappy-java's missing upper bound check on chunk length can lead to Denial of Service (DoS) impact
IDs: CVE-2023-43642, GHSA-55g7-9cwv-5qfv
Record: https://patchnext.com/advisories/cve-2023-43642 (revision 1, source checked 26 Oct 2026, 16:16 UTC)
Inventory: none attached. This brief comes from a public page and does not say whether any deployment is affected.
Severity: High (CVSS 7.5)
Exploitation: no confirmed exploitation recorded. Patch Next confirms exploitation only from CISA KEV.
Vendor response: Vendor fix available; fixed versions by package: org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java 1.1.10.4. A vendor fix does not mean a deployment is fixed.

## Affected components
- Maven org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java: affected <= 1.1.10.3; fixed in 1.1.10.4

## Suggested inspection (read-only)
- Maven org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java: check the installed version with your package manager.

## Supported action
Upgrade each affected component to a fixed version on its release line. For a transitive dependency, upgrade the parent package or add an override or constraint, then regenerate the lockfile. Redeploy every environment that ran an affected version.

## Required regression checks
- Run the test suite and a production build.
- Exercise the features that depend on org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java.
- Repeat the inspection and confirm that only fixed versions remain installed.

## Rollback considerations
- Keep the previous lockfile and deployment artifact. Rolling back reinstates the vulnerable version, so apply any documented mitigation while you fix forward.

## Unresolved questions
- Which deployments run an affected version?
- Exploitation status can change. Check again before lowering the priority.
- Mark the work resolved only after the fixed version is verified in production.

## Sources
- Verified: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-55g7-9cwv-5qfv (GitHub-reviewed advisory GHSA-55g7-9cwv-5qfv lists affected ranges: Maven org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java >=0 <=1.1.10.3)

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