sending random data crashes thrift service

Sending random data to a Java thrift service causes it to crash with extreme prejudice.

dd if=/dev/urandom count=1 | nc $host 9160

... produces ...

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
at org.apache.thrift.protocol.TBinaryProtocol.readStringBody(TBinaryProtocol.java:296)
at org.apache.thrift.protocol.TBinaryProtocol.readMessageBegin(TBinaryProtocol.java:203)
at org.apache.cassandra.service.Cassandra$Processor.process(Cassandra.java:615)
at org.apache.thrift.server.TThreadPoolServer$WorkerProcess.run(TThreadPoolServer.java:253)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1110)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:603)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:636)