By default, StaxUtils placed no limit on the total number of elements or the total number of characters in an XML document. A very large request could therefore use a lot of memory and CPU during parsing, especially where CXF builds a DOM from the input (for example SAAJ or WS-Security), and could cause a denial of service when no request size limit was configured. Both limits now have defaults: the maximum element count is 100 × maxChildElements (5,000,000 by default), and the maximum document size is 256M characters. Applications that process larger documents can raise the limits with the org.apache.cxf.stax.maxElementCount and org.apache.cxf.stax.maxXMLCharacters properties. Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 4.2.4 or 4.1.9 or 3.6.13, which fix this issue.
Fix
Patch, vendor advisory and mitigation references on NVD 1
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/ms2gbpof609o0v1bjlzb1rn7fwh61l1j Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory, Mailing List
Every line above is quoted from NVD, CISA, Microsoft, the vendor's own advisory or DISA; nothing is generated.
Change history 5
- Cpes+1 CPE criteria (now 1)NVD modified 2026-10-16 18:04
- StatusUndergoing Analysis → AnalyzedNVD modified 2026-10-16 18:04
- CwesCWE-776NVD modified 2026-10-15 18:17
- CVSS7.5 (v3.1, CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)NVD modified 2026-10-15 18:17
- First seenunscoredNVD modified 2026-10-09 16:33
Affected (CPE criteria) 1
cpe:2.3:a:apache:cxf:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
References 2
- https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/ms2gbpof609o0v1bjlzb1rn7fwh61l1j Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory, Mailing List
- http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/10/09/14 Mailing List, Third Party Advisory