CVE Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-33037

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

Published: Jul 12, 2021 | Modified: Nov 07, 2023
CVSS 3.x
5.3
MEDIUM
Source:
NVD
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
CVSS 2.x
5 MEDIUM
AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
RedHat/V2
RedHat/V3
4.3 MODERATE
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
Ubuntu
MEDIUM

Apache Tomcat 10.0.0-M1 to 10.0.6, 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.46 and 8.5.0 to 8.5.66 did not correctly parse the HTTP transfer-encoding request header in some circumstances leading to the possibility to request smuggling when used with a reverse proxy. Specifically: - Tomcat incorrectly ignored the transfer encoding header if the client declared it would only accept an HTTP/1.0 response; - Tomcat honoured the identify encoding; and - Tomcat did not ensure that, if present, the chunked encoding was the final encoding.

Weakness

The product acts as an intermediary HTTP agent (such as a proxy or firewall) in the data flow between two entities such as a client and server, but it does not interpret malformed HTTP requests or responses in ways that are consistent with how the messages will be processed by those entities that are at the ultimate destination.

Affected Software

Name Vendor Start Version End Version
Tomcat Apache 8.5.0 (including) 8.5.66 (including)
Tomcat Apache 9.0.0 (excluding) 9.0.46 (including)
Tomcat Apache 10.0.0 (excluding) 10.0.6 (including)
Red Hat Fuse 7.11 RedHat tomcat *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5 RedHat tomcat *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.6 on RHEL 7 RedHat jws5-tomcat-0:9.0.50-3.redhat_00004.1.el7jws *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.6 on RHEL 7 RedHat jws5-tomcat-native-0:1.2.30-3.redhat_3.el7jws *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.6 on RHEL 7 RedHat jws5-tomcat-vault-0:1.1.8-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el7jws *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.6 on RHEL 8 RedHat jws5-tomcat-0:9.0.50-3.redhat_00004.1.el8jws *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.6 on RHEL 8 RedHat jws5-tomcat-native-0:1.2.30-3.redhat_3.el8jws *
Red Hat JBoss Web Server 5.6 on RHEL 8 RedHat jws5-tomcat-vault-0:1.1.8-4.Final_redhat_00004.1.el8jws *
Red Hat Support for Spring Boot 2.5.10 RedHat tomcat *
Tomcat6 Ubuntu trusty *
Tomcat6 Ubuntu xenial *
Tomcat7 Ubuntu bionic *
Tomcat7 Ubuntu trusty *
Tomcat7 Ubuntu xenial *
Tomcat8 Ubuntu bionic *
Tomcat8 Ubuntu xenial *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu bionic *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu focal *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu groovy *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu hirsute *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu impish *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu kinetic *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu lunar *
Tomcat9 Ubuntu mantic *

Extended Description

HTTP requests or responses (“messages”) can be malformed or unexpected in ways that cause web servers or clients to interpret the messages in different ways than intermediary HTTP agents such as load balancers, reverse proxies, web caching proxies, application firewalls, etc. For example, an adversary may be able to add duplicate or different header fields that a client or server might interpret as one set of messages, whereas the intermediary might interpret the same sequence of bytes as a different set of messages. For example, discrepancies can arise in how to handle duplicate headers like two Transfer-encoding (TE) or two Content-length (CL), or the malicious HTTP message will have different headers for TE and CL. The inconsistent parsing and interpretation of messages can allow the adversary to “smuggle” a message to the client/server without the intermediary being aware of it. This weakness is usually the result of the usage of outdated or incompatible HTTP protocol versions in the HTTP agents.

Potential Mitigations

References