CVE-2026-85721AsyncHttpClient: Unbounded HTTP/1.1 response decompression enables a decompression-bomb denial of service

The AsyncHttpClient (AHC) library allows Java applications to easily execute HTTP requests and asynchronously process HTTP responses. From 2.0.0 until 2.16.1 and 3.0.12, automatic response decompression on the HTTP/1.1 path uses ChannelManager.newHttpContentDecompressor() to install Http1ContentDecompressor without a cumulative output-size limit. A hostile or compromised server, or an attacker who can alter a response in transit, can send a small gzip, deflate, or snappy response that expands across chunks until the client exhausts its heap and raises OutOfMemoryError; brotli and zstd are also affected when their optional codecs are present. In versions 3.0.8 through 3.0.10, the HTTP/2 decompressor is also unbounded, so switching protocols does not mitigate the issue on those releases. A limit applied to each decode call is insufficient because the response can be delivered as many small chunks, so the fixed implementation tracks total decompressed bytes for the whole response. This issue is fixed in versions 2.16.1 and 3.0.12.

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-400, CWE-409

Known exploited

Not in CISA's KEV catalog

EPSS (exploitation in the next 30 days)

Not loaded for this CVE

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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