CVE-2026-68498: jackson-core: Delayed maxNameLength enforcement for char-backed input (ReaderBasedJsonParser) allows memory-exhaustion denial of service
FasterXML · jackson-core
Fixed in 2.16.0 · Affected: FasterXML jackson-core before 2.16.0 · Exploitation: unlikely (under 1%)
Not in CyberSIXT coverage yet: no article names this CVE. This page shows the public record.
Higher than 51% of scored CVEs
DescriptionCVE.org
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.
Affected products2
From the CVE record. A product or version that is not listed is unknown, not unaffected.
- FasterXML · jackson-corefrom 2.16.0 before 2.18.10; from 2.19.0 before 2.21.6; from 2.22.0 before 2.22.2
- FasterXML · jackson-corefrom 3.0.0 before 3.1.6; from 3.2.0 before 3.2.2
On the Atlas
Every published CVE is on the CyberSIXT Atlas, grouped by weakness, vendor and month.
- Exploitation
- Unlikely (under 1%). EPSS under 1%, or no score yet.
- CISA KEV
- Not listed
- Public check
- No public nuclei template
- Vendor
- FasterXML
- Published
- October 2026
CoverageNo articles yet
No CyberSIXT article names CVE-2026-68498 yet, so there is no coverage timeline, action brief or change log for it. Everything on this page comes from the public CVE record, CISA KEV, EPSS and the nuclei template index. Search the archive or see the CVEs in the news.