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

CVE-2019-16869

Severity High
Score 7.5/10

Summary

Netty versions through 4.1.41.Final and 5.0.0-Alpha1 through 5.0.0-Alpha2 mishandles whitespace before the colon in HTTP headers (such as a "Transfer-Encoding : chunked" line), which leads to HTTP request smuggling.

  • LOW
  • NETWORK
  • HIGH
  • UNCHANGED
  • NONE
  • NONE
  • 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.

Advisory Timeline

  • Published