CVE-2026-53937

MEDIUM CVSS 3.1: 6.2 EPSS 0.19%
Updated Sep 14, 2026
Modelcontextprotocol
Parameter Value
CVSS 6.2 (MEDIUM)
Affected Versions 0.7.0 — 0.12.0
Type CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption), CWE-770 (Allocation Without Limits)
Vendor Modelcontextprotocol
Public PoC No

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.

Attack Parameters

Attack Vector
Local
Requires local access
Attack Complexity
Low
Easy to exploit
Privileges Required
None
No privileges needed
User Interaction
None
No user interaction needed

Impact Assessment

Confidentiality
None
No data leak
Integrity
None
No data modification
Availability
High
Complete denial of service

CVSS Vector v3.1

Vulnerable Products

modelcontextprotocol:io.modelcontextprotocol:kotlin-sdk-client modelcontextprotocol:io.modelcontextprotocol:kotlin-sdk-core modelcontextprotocol:io.modelcontextprotocol:kotlin-sdk modelcontextprotocol:io.modelcontextprotocol:kotlin-sdk-server