CVE-2026-56740 HIGH

CVE-2026-56740: JLine: Unauthenticated Remote Memory Exhaustion via Unbounded Telnet NEW-ENVIRON Variables

Vendor Jline
Product jline3
Weakness CWE-400
Published July 17, 2026
Last update July 17, 2026

CVSS base score

7.5/10
Attack vector Network
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required None
User interaction None
Confidentiality None
Integrity None

CVSS vector

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

What the vulnerability does

01Description

JLine is a Java library for handling console input. Prior to 3.30.14, 4.0.16, and 4.2.1, the JLine3 Telnet server remote-telnet module does not limit the number of environment variables a client may inject via the Telnet NEW-ENVIRON option, and TelnetIO.readNEVariables() in TelnetIO.java:1127-1180 stores each variable pair in a HashMap held by ConnectionData, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to flood unique variable pairs before the terminating IAC SE byte and exhaust JVM heap memory with an OutOfMemoryError. This issue is fixed in versions 3.30.14, 4.0.16, and 4.2.1.

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

July 17, 2026 CVE published

Related vulnerabilities

04Related CVE