CVE Catalog

CVE-2021-21295

MediumCVSS 5.9
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Very high risk
18.89%

97th percentile - higher than 97% of all known CVEs

Summary

Netty (io.netty:netty-codec-http2) before version 4.1.60.Final contains a vulnerability enabling request smuggling. When an HTTP/2 request is converted to HTTP/1.1 by `Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec` and forwarded to a remote peer, the Content-Length header is not validated by `Http2MultiplexHandler`, allowing an attacker to smuggle additional requests within the body.

Risk Assessment

The risk affects organizations using Netty as a proxy where HTTP/2 requests are downgraded to HTTP/1.1 and forwarded. An attacker can smuggle requests, potentially leading to cache poisoning, access control bypass, or other attacks on the backend.

Recommendation

It is recommended to immediately upgrade Netty to version 4.1.60.Final or later. If upgrading is not possible, implement a custom `ChannelInboundHandler` in the `ChannelPipeline` behind `Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec` to manually validate the Content-Length header.

Other vulnerabilities in Netty

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

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`.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS