VulnerabilityPublished 14 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-73633: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption Vulnerability

Source GCVE Database

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Authoritative record:CVE-2026-73633· High 7.5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.5 High · fixed in 6.11.0 : patch Apache Struts soon.

Data as of 12 Nov 2026, 23:24 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.5High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 53% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.
Patch: Available – fixed in 6.11.0

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Network
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: None
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Network: The vulnerable component is bound to the network stack and the set of possible attackers extends beyond the other options listed, up to and including the entire Internet. Such a vulnerability is often termed 'remotely exploitable' and can be thought of as an attack being exploitable at the protocol level one or more network hops away (e.g., across one or more routers).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: None: The attacker is unauthorized prior to attack, and therefore does not require any access to settings or files to carry out an attack.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 14 Aug 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponized: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 13 Nov 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponized: A Metasploit exploit module or Exploit-DB entry exists (Metasploit scanner modules do not count), or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

ghsa-335q-cpqh-m68h

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Apache Software FoundationApache Struts	Affected >=2.1.8 <=2.3.37 >=2.5.0 <=2.5.33 >=6.0.0 <=6.10.0 >=7.0.0 <=7.2.1	Fixed in–
MavenApache Software Foundation/org.apache.struts:struts2-json-plugin`pkg:maven/Apache Software Foundation/org.apache.struts:struts2-json-plugin`Other threats	Affected >=2.1.8 <=2.3.37 >=2.5.0 <=2.5.33 >=6.0.0 <=6.10.0 >=7.0.0 <=7.2.1	Fixed in–

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AI-suggested

Users should upgrade affected Apache Struts installations to version 6.11.0 or 7.3.0 where this vulnerability is fixed. Applications not using the JSON plugin or not enabling JSON request-body handling are not affected and require no action. No other mitigations are indicated by the vendor advisory.

Description

An uncontrolled resource consumption vulnerability exists in the JSON plugin of Apache Struts. When configured to populate actions from a JSON request body, the plugin reads the entire body into memory without properly bounding the size, allowing a single request to exhaust heap memory and cause denial of service. The plugin's configurable JSON input length limit does not effectively restrict this behavior. This affects Apache Struts versions from 2.1.8 through 2.3.37, 2.5.0 through 2.5.33, 6.0.0 through 6.10.0, and 7.0.0 through 7.2.1. Upgrading to versions 6.11.0 or 7.3.0 resolves the issue.

Impact

An attacker can send a specially crafted JSON request body that is excessively large, causing the JSON plugin to consume excessive heap memory. This leads to denial of service by exhausting server resources, impacting availability. There is no confidentiality or integrity impact reported. The severity is high with a CVSS 3.1 score of 7.5, reflecting a network attack vector, low attack complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction, and impact limited to availability.

Summary

CVE-2026-73633 describes a denial-of-service vulnerability in the Apache Struts JSON plugin. The vulnerability arises because the plugin reads JSON request bodies into memory without enforcing an effective size limit, leading to uncontrolled resource consumption. This can exhaust heap memory and deny service to legitimate users. The issue affects multiple version ranges of Apache Struts, specifically 2.1.8 through 2.3.37, 2.5.0 through 2.5.33, 6.0.0 through 6.10.0, and 7.0.0 through 7.2.1. The vulnerability is fixed in versions 6.11.0 and 7.3.0. The JSON plugin is optional, and only applications configured to handle JSON request bodies via this plugin are vulnerable.

CWE-400Uncontrolled Resource Consumption (opens in a new tab)
Class weaknessLikelihood of exploit: High
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
MITRE discourages mapping vulnerabilities to this broad entry; the root cause is usually a more specific weakness.
Architecture and Design
Design throttling mechanisms into the system architecture. The best protection is to limit the amount of resources that an unauthorized user can cause to be expended. A strong authentication and access control model will help prevent such attacks from occurring in the first place.
Architecture and Design
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either: recognizes the attack and denies that user further access for a given amount of time, or; uniformly throttles all requests in order to make it more difficult to consume resources more quickly than they can again be freed.
Architecture and Design
Ensure that protocols have specific limits of scale placed on them.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
File Upload (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V12.1.1 (opens in a new tab)
Attack patterns
XML Ping of the Death (opens in a new tab)
Regular Expression Exponential Blowup (opens in a new tab)
Sustained Client Engagement (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 4 Nov 2026, 13:43 UTC

Public exploits and detectionGitHub proofs of concept

WeaknessesCWE-400

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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