CVE-2026-68494
The fix released in jackson-core 2.18.6 and 2.21.1 for CVE-2026-18401 (GHSA-72hv-8253-57qq, number length constraint bypass in the non-blocking parser) is incomplete. This record covers the remaining bypass. The earlier fix wired validateIntegerLength() into a new _setIntLength() helper and invoked it wherever the integer portion of a number is decided: a terminator byte arrives, a . or e/E is seen, or input ends inside a fully buffered value. It was not invoked on the attacker-relevant path where the parser runs out of input while still inside the MINOR_NUMBER_INTEGER_DIGITS minor state and returns NOT_AVAILABLE to the caller. As a result, an attacker who streams JSON to a non-blocking parser in many small chunks, without ever sending a terminator byte, keeps the parser inside MINOR_NUMBER_INTEGER_DIGITS indefinitely. _textBuffer.expandCurrentSegment() grows the accumulator on every chunk while validateIntegerLength() is never called. The accumulator is bounded only by maxStringLength (20 MiB by default) rather than by maxNumberLength (1000 by default), an amplification of roughly 20,000x over the documented limit. Because Java char values occupy two bytes, a single connecti
No public exploitation has been reported so far. No distribution fix is listed yet; apply vendor mitigations and monitor.
Recommended action: Track your distribution's security tracker and apply the fix as soon as it ships.
Severity metrics
CVSS 4.0 : 8.7 HIGH
Vector: AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
Affected & fixed versions by distribution
Versions are the native distribution strings (backport-aware): RHEL/Debian/SUSE backport fixes, so compare with the distro version comparator (dpkg / rpm / vercmp), not the upstream version.
No affected package in the tracked watchlist yet (Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, SUSE, Red Hat...). Triage may still be pending.