Medium severity · published Mar 9, 2021
CVE-2021-21295
Possible request smuggling in HTTP/2 due missing validation
5.9
CVSS
18.9%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
Netty is an open-source, asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. In Netty (io.netty:netty-codec-http2) before version 4.1.60.Final there is a vulnerability that enables request smuggling. If a Content-Length header is present in the original HTTP/2 request, the field is not validated by `Http2MultiplexHandler` as it is propagated up. This is fine as long as the request is not proxied through as HTTP/1.1. If the request comes in as an HTTP/2 stream, gets converted into the HTTP/1.1 domain objects (`HttpRequest`, `HttpContent`, etc.) via `Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec `and then sent up to the child channel's pipeline and proxied through a remote peer as HTTP/1.1 this may result in request smuggling. In a proxy case, users may assume the content-length is validated somehow, which is not the case. If the request is forwarded to a backend channel that is a HTTP/1.1 connection, the Content-Length now has meaning and needs to be checked. An attacker can smuggle requests inside the body as it gets downgraded from HTTP/2 to HTTP/1.1. For an example attack refer to the linked GitHub Advisory. Users are only affected if all of this is true: `HTTP2MultiplexCodec` or `Http2FrameCodec` is used, `Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec` is used to convert to HTTP/1.1 objects, and these HTTP/1.1 objects are forwarded to another remote peer. This has been patched in 4.1.60.Final As a workaround, the user can do the validation by themselves by implementing a custom `ChannelInboundHandler` that is put in the `ChannelPipeline` behind `Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec`.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
High
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)18.9% · higher than 97% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
IO
io.netty:netty-codec-http2 · netty
< 4.1.60.Final · source: vendor
CC
Communications Cloud Native Core Policy · Oracle
1.14.0 · source: NVD
DL
Debian Linux · Debian
10.0 · source: NVD
KU
Kudu · Apache
before 1.16.0 · source: NVD
NE
Netty · Netty
before 4.1.60 · source: NVD
OA
Oncommand Api Services · Netapp
All versions, or not specified · source: NVD
OW
Oncommand Workflow Automation · Netapp
All versions, or not specified · source: NVD
QU
Quarkus · Quarkus
through 1.13.7 · source: NVD
ZO
Zookeeper · Apache
3.5.9 · source: NVD
References
NVD
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2021-21295
CVE.org
https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2021-21295
Patch
https://github.com/Netflix/zuul/pull/980
Patch
https://github.com/netty/netty/commit/89c241e3b1795ff257af4ad6eadc616cb2fb3dc4
Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/netty/netty/security/advisories/GHSA-wm47-8v5p-wjpj
lists.apache.org
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r02e467123d45006a1dda20a38349e9c74c3a4b53e2e07be0939ecb3f%40%3Cdev.ranger.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r040a5e4d9cca2f98354b58a70b27099672276f66995c4e2e39545d0b%40%3Cissues.hbase.apache.org%3E
lists.apache.org
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/r04a3e0d9f53421fb946c60cc54762b7151dc692eb4e39970a7579052%40%3Ccommits.servicecomb.apache.org%3E
