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CVE-2026-53937

MCP Kotlin SDK's unbounded line buffer in StdioServerTransport/StdioClientTransport leads to memory exhaustion (DoS)

Published: Sep 8, 2026Updated: Sep 14, 2026 Sources: CVE List NVDCWE-400

Description

MCP Kotlin SDK is the Kotlin Multiplatform software development kit for the Model Context Protocol. In versions 0.7.0 through 0.12.0, `ReadBuffer.append` in `kotlin-sdk-core/src/commonMain/kotlin/io/modelcontextprotocol/kotlin/sdk/shared/ReadBuffer.kt` writes every chunk of bytes received from the stdio transport into a `kotlinx.io.Buffer` with no size cap. Frames are extracted from that buffer only when a `\n` (0x0a) byte is observed. A peer that streams bytes without ever sending a newline causes the internal buffer to grow indefinitely until the JVM (or the surrounding host process) is OOM-killed. The leak is amplified by `StdioServerTransport` and `StdioClientTransport`, which both queue raw chunks through a `kotlinx.coroutines.channels.Channel<ByteArray>(Channel.UNLIMITED)` and then call `readBuffer.append(chunk)` without backpressure or size guard. This is a remote-pre-auth denial of service whenever an SDK stdio server's stdin is fed by an untrusted or attacker-controlled producer (for example: a host program that exec's the MCP server as a subprocess and pipes through bytes received from a network peer, or a sidecar wrapper that proxies bytes from an HTTP endpoint to the stdio transport). Version 0.13.0 fixes the issue.

No summary for this CVE yet.

CVSS Vector Breakdown

AV:LAC:LPR:NUI:NS:UC:NI:NA:H
Exploitability
AV:LAttack Vector
Local
AC:LAttack Complexity
Low
PR:NPrivileges Required
None
UI:NUser Interaction
None
Scope
S:UScope
Unchanged
Impact
C:NConfidentiality
None
I:NIntegrity
None
A:HAvailability
High

Weaknesses

Affected Products

Exploitability

No known exploits, KEV entries, or remediation guidance available for this vulnerability yet.

Attack Graph

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MITRE ATT&CK

1 technique
Impact
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References

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