---
id: CVE-2026-108039
title: >-
  By default, StaxUtils placed no limit on the total number of elements or the
  total number of characters in an XML document
summary: >-
  By default, StaxUtils placed no limit on the total number of elements or the
  total number of characters in an XML document. A very large request could
  therefore use a lot of memory and CPU during parsing, especially where CXF
  builds a DO…
severity: high
cvss: 7.5
cvssVector: 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H'
cwe:
  - CWE-776
  - CWE-770
vendor: apache
product: cxf
affected:
  - cxf < 3.6.13
  - 'cxf >= 4.0.0, < 4.1.9'
  - 'cxf >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.4'
patched:
  - cxf 4.2.4
published: '2026-10-09'
updated: '2026-10-16'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-16T18:04:25.477'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-108039'
references:
  - url: 'https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/ms2gbpof609o0v1bjlzb1rn7fwh61l1j'
    label: security@apache.org
  - url: 'http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2026/10/09/14'
    label: af854a3a-2127-422b-91ae-364da2661108
  - url: >-
      https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-108039.json
  - url: 'https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-108039'
  - url: 'https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2548457'
  - url: 'https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-108039'
  - url: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-108039'
tags:
  - nvd
  - cve.org
  - csaf
  - vex
  - red-hat
epss: 0.00458
epssPercentile: 0.39535
ssvc:
  exploitation: none
  automatable: 'yes'
  technicalImpact: partial
  timestamp: '2026-10-15T17:55:40.915922Z'
ingestedAt: '2026-10-09T12:53:29.299Z'
---

## Overview

By default, StaxUtils placed no limit on the total number of elements or the total number of characters in an XML document. A very large request could therefore use a lot of memory and CPU during parsing, especially where CXF builds a DOM from the input (for example SAAJ or WS-Security), and could cause a denial of service when no request size limit was configured. Both limits now have defaults: the maximum element count is 100 × maxChildElements (5,000,000 by default), and the maximum document size is 256M characters. Applications that process larger documents can raise the limits with the org.apache.cxf.stax.maxElementCount and org.apache.cxf.stax.maxXMLCharacters properties.
Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 4.2.4 or 4.1.9 or 3.6.13, which fix this issue.

## Affected

- `cxf < 3.6.13`
- `cxf >= 4.0.0, < 4.1.9`
- `cxf >= 4.2.0, < 4.2.4`

## Remediation

Upgrade past the affected range:

- `cxf 4.2.4`

## Vendor advisories

- **Red Hat VEX** · Important · affected: Red Hat build of Apache Camel 4 for Quarkus 3, Red Hat build of Apache Camel for Spring Boot 4, Red Hat Fuse 7, Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7, Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 8, Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5, … · no fix planned: Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7, Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5, Red Hat Single Sign-On 7, Red Hat build of Apache Camel 4 for Quarkus 3, … · updated 2026-10-16 · [vex](https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-108039.json)