diff --git a/libutils/String8.cpp b/libutils/String8.cpp
index e852d77b7..e5a48e55a 100644
--- a/libutils/String8.cpp
+++ b/libutils/String8.cpp
@@ -78,6 +78,9 @@ void terminate_string8()
 static char* allocFromUTF8(const char* in, size_t len)
 {
     if (len > 0) {
+        if (len == SIZE_MAX) {
+            return NULL;
+        }
         SharedBuffer* buf = SharedBuffer::alloc(len+1);
         ALOG_ASSERT(buf, "Unable to allocate shared buffer");
         if (buf) {