CVE-2026-105902: CAI Content Credentials DOS Vulnerability

CVE-2026-105902 Overview

CVE-2026-105902 is an Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability [CWE-400] affecting Adobe CAI Content Credentials. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exhaust system resources, triggering an application denial-of-service condition. Exploitation requires no user interaction and no privileges, making the attack trivial to deliver over the network.

Adobe published an advisory for this issue through its Product Security Incident Response Team. The flaw affects the availability of the Content Credentials SDK, which is used to attach provenance metadata to digital media assets.

Critical Impact
A remote, unauthenticated attacker can crash or stall the CAI Content Credentials application, disrupting any workflow or service that depends on content provenance verification.

Affected Products

Adobe CAI Content Credentials SDK
Applications integrating the Content Credentials SDK for provenance signing or verification
Downstream services that rely on Content Credentials processing pipelines

Discovery Timeline

2026-10-13 - CVE-2026-105902 published to the National Vulnerability Database
2026-10-14 - Entry last modified in NVD

Technical Details for CVE-2026-105902

Vulnerability Analysis

The vulnerability stems from uncontrolled resource consumption during input processing in the CAI Content Credentials SDK. An attacker can submit crafted input over the network that forces the application to allocate excessive memory, CPU cycles, or other finite resources. The condition does not require authentication, user interaction, or any elevated privileges on the target system.

Because the attack vector is network-based and complexity is low, the issue can be reached by any client able to deliver input to a vulnerable endpoint. Confidentiality and integrity are not affected, but availability is fully impacted. The flaw maps to [CWE-400: Uncontrolled Resource Consumption], a class of defects where input-driven work is not bounded by rate, size, or iteration limits.

Root Cause

The root cause is missing enforcement of resource bounds while handling attacker-controlled input within the Content Credentials processing path. Without caps on allocation size, parsing depth, or compute iterations, malformed or oversized assets can drive the process into a resource-exhaustion state.

Attack Vector

An attacker sends crafted content or metadata to an exposed Content Credentials processing endpoint. Repeated or amplified requests accelerate resource exhaustion, resulting in degraded response times, dropped connections, or full application unavailability. No valid credentials or user interaction are needed.

No public proof-of-concept or exploit tooling is currently available. Technical details are described in the Adobe Security Bulletin APSB26-163.

Detection Methods for CVE-2026-105902

Indicators of Compromise

Sudden spikes in memory, CPU, or thread utilization within Content Credentials SDK processes
Application crashes, out-of-memory errors, or watchdog restarts correlated with inbound asset processing
Unusually large or malformed content submissions directed at provenance verification endpoints

Detection Strategies

Correlate process-level resource telemetry with request logs for endpoints that invoke the Content Credentials SDK
Alert on repeated requests from a single source that trigger abnormal processing time or memory growth
Baseline normal request size and parsing duration, then flag deviations above threshold

Monitoring Recommendations

Enable detailed telemetry for host memory, CPU, and process-restart events on servers hosting Content Credentials workloads
Forward application logs and network metadata to a centralized data lake for cross-source correlation
Monitor edge and load-balancer metrics for request-rate anomalies and connection saturation

How to Mitigate CVE-2026-105902

Immediate Actions Required

Apply the Adobe-provided updates referenced in APSB26-163 to all affected deployments
Inventory services that embed or depend on the CAI Content Credentials SDK and prioritize internet-exposed instances
Place rate limits and request-size caps in front of Content Credentials endpoints until patches are deployed

Patch Information

Adobe has published remediation guidance in the Content Credentials SDK security bulletin APSB26-163. Administrators should upgrade to the fixed SDK version identified in that advisory and rebuild any downstream applications that statically link the SDK.

Workarounds

Restrict network access to Content Credentials processing endpoints using allowlists or authenticated proxies
Enforce maximum request size and parsing timeouts at the reverse proxy or API gateway layer
Isolate Content Credentials workloads in resource-capped containers so exhaustion events do not impact adjacent services

bash

# Example nginx reverse proxy limits to constrain inbound requests
http {
    client_max_body_size 10m;
    client_body_timeout 10s;
    client_header_timeout 10s;
    limit_req_zone $binary_remote_addr zone=cai:10m rate=20r/s;

    server {
        location /content-credentials/ {
            limit_req zone=cai burst=40 nodelay;
            proxy_read_timeout 15s;
            proxy_pass http://cai_backend;
        }
    }
}