CVE-2026-81875HAPI FHIR: SHCParser unbounded DEFLATE decompression causes denial of service

HAPI FHIR is a complete implementation of the HL7 FHIR standard for healthcare interoperability in Java. Prior to version 6.9.12, SHCParser in org.hl7.fhir.r5/src/main/java/org/hl7/fhir/r5/elementmodel/SHCParser.java can consume attacker-controlled Smart Health Card JWT content whose header contains zip: "DEF" and whose small raw-DEFLATE payload expands to a very large value. SHCParser.decodeJWT() passes the decoded payload to SHCParser.inflate(), which accumulates all decompressed bytes in a ByteArrayOutputStream without an output-size limit before JSON parsing, and SHCParser.decompress() contains the same unbounded pattern. An application or validator service that accepts attacker-supplied SHC content can therefore suffer excessive heap allocation, severe garbage-collection pressure, request failure, process instability, or process termination. This issue is fixed in version 6.9.12.

CVSS

7.5 HIGH (v3.1, CNA)CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Weakness (CWE)

CWE-20, CWE-400, CWE-409

Known exploited

Not in CISA's KEV catalog

EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)

0.63% (percentile 49)

Assigned by

GitHub_M

NVD analysis

Awaiting Analysis

Record last updated

Sep 17, 2026

First seen by InfoSec Signals

Oct 9, 2026

The CVE record on cve.org · NVD's entry

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