CVE-2026-68497 jackson-databind: Duration XMLGregorianCalendar Unbounded Number Parse DoS

What is CVE-2026-68497?

CVE-2026-68497 is a high-severity denial of service vulnerability in FasterXML jackson-databind, published on 11 Sep 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

jackson-databind binds a JSON string to a javax.xml.datatype.Duration or javax.xml.datatype.XMLGregorianCalendar field by passing the raw string verbatim to DatatypeFactory.newDuration(value) or newXMLGregorianCalendar(value) in CoreXMLDeserializers.Std._deserialize. These deserializers are registered by default with no opt-in, so a plain ObjectMapper or JsonMapper with no polymorphic typing and no special configuration reaches this path. The XML Schema lexical grammar permits numeric components of arbitrary length, which the JDK materializes through the native BigInteger(String) and BigDecimal(String) constructors, both quadratic in digit count. Because the digits sit inside a JSON string token rather than a JSON number token, jackson-core's StreamReadConstraints.maxNumberLength guard never applies; jackson's own NumberDeserializers call validateIntegerLength or validateFPLength before parsing a stringified number, but the XML datatype deserializer omits that pre-check. An unauthenticated attacker can therefore submit a single request of a few megabytes, such as a Duration value consisting of the letter P followed by several million digits and the letter Y, and force tens of seconds to several minutes of single-threaded CPU work; a handful of concurrent requests can saturate a server's worker threads. This affects com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind from 2.0.0 before 2.18.10, from 2.19.0 before 2.21.6, and from 2.22.0 before 2.22.2, and tools.jackson.core:jackson-databind from 3.0.0 before 3.1.6 and from 3.2.0 before 3.2.2. Users should upgrade to 2.18.10, 2.21.6, 2.22.2, 3.1.6, or 3.2.2.

Weakness: CWE-400, CWE-1333

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-68497?

10 open source packages ship an affected version, including com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind and tools.jackson.core:jackson-databind.

How do I fix CVE-2026-68497?

Upgrade com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind to a fixed version for your release line: 2.18.10, 2.21.6 or 2.22.2.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2026-68497 being exploited?

It is not confirmed as exploited in the wild, but public exploit code for CVE-2026-68497 exists.

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as ALSA-2026:77648, ALSA-2026:80504, CLEANSTART-2026-AW63553, CLEANSTART-2026-BM41905, CLEANSTART-2026-BM99045, CLEANSTART-2026-JD77891 and 134 more.