Vulnerability Description
In Eclipse Jetty, the Digest authentication server-side component uses ISO-8859-1 to encode the password as bytes. This was done because the initial specification for HTTP did not specify explicitly a charset, and it was assumed to be ISO-8859-1 for historical reasons. If the password contains characters that cannot be represented in ISO-8859-1, they are silently replaced by `?`. This happens with passwords that contain Chinese, Cyrillic or Greek characters, for example: `αβ123` converts to `??123`. An attacker can send a request with a digest `Authorization` header crafted with a password made of only `?` characters; the server would match any password of the same length that contains non-ISO-8859-1 characters. Recent HTTP Digest [RFC-7616](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7616) supports a `charset` parameters that defaults to UTF-8 that allows for correct encoding/decoding of passwords.
CVSS Score
CRITICAL
Affected Products
| Vendor | Product | Versions |
|---|---|---|
| Eclipse | Jetty | >= 9.4.0, < 9.4.63 |
Related Weaknesses (CWE)
References
- https://github.com/jetty/jetty.project/security/advisories/GHSA-2fvj-hgj9-j2grVendor AdvisoryExploit
- https://gitlab.eclipse.org/security/cve-assignment/-/work_items/120Issue Tracking
- https://github.com/jetty/jetty.project/security/advisories/GHSA-2fvj-hgj9-j2grVendor AdvisoryExploit
FAQ
What is CVE-2026-10050?
CVE-2026-10050 is a vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.1 (CRITICAL). In Eclipse Jetty, the Digest authentication server-side component uses ISO-8859-1 to encode the password as bytes. This was done because the initial specification for HTTP did not specify explicitl...
How severe is CVE-2026-10050?
CVE-2026-10050 has been rated CRITICAL with a CVSS base score of 9.1/10. This is considered a critical vulnerability requiring immediate attention.
Is there a patch for CVE-2026-10050?
Check the references section above for vendor advisories and patch information. Affected products include: Eclipse Jetty.