Uncontrolled Resource Consumption vulnerability in the HTTP/1.1 message parser in Apache HttpComponents Core (5.4.2 and earlier, 5.5-beta1 and earlier) allows an remote attacker to cause a denial of service through memory exhaustion by sending messages with excessive number of headers / excessive header length
Weakness
The product does not properly control the allocation and maintenance of a limited resource.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Httpcomponents_core | Apache | 5.0 (including) | 5.4.2 (including) |
| Httpcomponents_core | Apache | 5.5-alpha1 (including) | 5.5-alpha1 (including) |
| Httpcomponents_core | Apache | 5.5-beta1 (including) | 5.5-beta1 (including) |
| Red Hat build of Apache Camel 4.18.3 for Spring Boot 3.5.16 | RedHat | httpcore | * |
| Red Hat build of Apache Camel 4.18.3 for Spring Boot 3.5.16 | RedHat | httpcore5 | * |
| Red Hat Build of Apache Camel 4.18 for Quarkus 3.33 | RedHat | httpcore | * |
| Red Hat build of Quarkus 3.33.2.SP3 | RedHat | * | |
| Httpcomponents-core | Ubuntu | questing | * |
| Httpcomponents-core5 | Ubuntu | questing | * |
Potential Mitigations
Mitigation of resource exhaustion attacks requires that the target system either:
The first of these solutions is an issue in itself though, since it may allow attackers to prevent the use of the system by a particular valid user. If the attacker impersonates the valid user, they may be able to prevent the user from accessing the server in question.
The second solution is simply difficult to effectively institute – and even when properly done, it does not provide a full solution. It simply makes the attack require more resources on the part of the attacker.
Related Attack Patterns
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/147.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/227.html
- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/492.html