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HPKEContext operations may produce empty byte[] on failures

Moderate
normanmaurer published GHSA-f659-372h-6x3x May 20, 2026

Package

maven io.netty.incubator.codec.ohttp (Maven)

Affected versions

< 0.0.21.Final

Patched versions

0.0.21.Final

Description

HKDF_expand: returns non-NULL on failure. The byte[] is filled with zeros and has no way to distinguish success from failure. Since this output is used as HKDF key material for the response AEAD, a failure silently produces an all-zero key.

When EVP_HPKE_CTX_export fails it also returns an empty byte[] array filled with zeros. This byte[] feeds directly into OHttpCrypto.createResponseAEAD(...). A silent all-zero export secret would produce a deterministic, attacker-predictable AEAD key.

Severity

Moderate

CVE ID

CVE-2026-41207

Weaknesses

No CWEs