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Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')

CVE-2005-2088

Medium
4.3/10

Summary

The Apache HTTP server before 1.3.34, and 2.0.x before 2.0.55, when acting as an HTTP proxy, allows remote attackers to poison the web cache, bypass web application firewall protection, and conduct XSS attacks via an HTTP request with both a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header and a Content-Length header, which causes Apache to incorrectly handle and forward the body of the request in a way that causes the receiving server to process it as a separate HTTP request, aka "HTTP Request Smuggling."

  • MEDIUM
  • NETWORK
  • NONE
  • PARTIAL
  • NONE
  • NONE

CWE-444 - HTTP Request Smuggling

Entities such as web servers, web caching proxies, and application firewalls could parse HTTP requests differently. When there are two or more such entities in the path of an HTTP request, an attacker can send a specially crafted HTTP request that is seen as two different sets of requests by the attacked devices, allowing the attacker to smuggle a request into one device without the other device being aware of it. Such a vulnerability can prove devastating, for it enables further attacks on the application, like web cache poisoning, session hijacking, cross-site scripting, security bypassing, and sensitive information exposure.

References

Advisory Timeline

  • Published