GHSA-9998-894r-fwvr
Http4s Ember Transfer-Encoding value parsing (TE.CL / TE.0 request smuggling)
Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maven | org.http4s:http4s-ember-core_3 | < 0.23.35 | 0.23.35 |
| Maven | org.http4s:http4s-ember-core_2.13 | < 0.23.35 | 0.23.35 |
| Maven | org.http4s:http4s-ember-core_2.12 | < 0.23.35 | 0.23.35 |
| Maven | org.http4s:http4s-ember-core_2.13 | >= 1.0.0-M1, < 1.0.0-M47 | 1.0.0-M47 |
| Maven | org.http4s:http4s-ember-core_3 | >= 1.0.0-M1, < 1.0.0-M47 | 1.0.0-M47 |
Details
As written in the advisory (Markdown source, shown as plain text).
## Summary
Ember's HTTP/1.1 header parser matches the `Transfer-Encoding` header value
with a case-sensitive substring test (`hValue.contains("chunked")`). RFC
9112 §7 requires transfer-coding names to be compared case-insensitively. A
request carrying `Transfer-Encoding: Chunked` (capital C) is therefore not
recognised as chunked, and Ember falls back to framing by `Content-Length`
(or zero if absent) while a compliant intermediary frames the same bytes by
chunked encoding. The two parsers then disagree on where the request body
ends, enabling HTTP request smuggling (TE.CL / TE.0).
The same line of code admits two further variants:
- The substring test misfires on `Transfer-Encoding: notchunked` (an inverse
desync — Ember treats it as chunked while a compliant intermediary
rejects the unknown coding).
- Header field bytes are decoded with the platform-default charset. Under
UTF-8 the wire bytes `E2 84 AA` decode to U+212A KELVIN SIGN, which
`String.equalsIgnoreCase` Unicode-case-folds to `k`, so
`Transfer-Encoding: chun<U+212A>ed` matches `chunked` once the comparison
is made case-insensitive without also pinning the decode to ISO-8859-1.
## Impact
### Server
Request smuggling when ember-server is an origin behind an intermediary that
honours `Transfer-Encoding` case-insensitively per RFC, forwards the header
value verbatim, and reuses keep-alive connections to the backend:
- Front-end security bypass: the smuggled request reaches paths the
intermediary's ACL/auth layer would have blocked, with attacker-chosen
method and headers.
- Cross-user request hijack: a partial smuggled prefix left in Ember's
connection buffer is concatenated with the next victim's request on the
same pooled backend connection, exposing its headers (e.g. `Cookie`,
`Authorization`) to the attacker.
- Cache poisoning: the smuggled response is associated with the next request
key in a caching proxy.
### Client
ember-client shares the same `HeaderP.parse` on the response path, enabling
response smuggling when http4s is used as a gateway. This is less severe: it
requires a malicious or compromised upstream rather than an anonymous remote
client.
## Preconditions
- Unauthenticated remote attacker (server)
- ember-server as origin behind a keep-alive intermediary
- Intermediary treats `Transfer-Encoding` case-insensitively (per RFC) and
forwards the header value without lowercasing it
- Malicious or compromised upstream (client)
## Workarounds
- Intermediary fully buffers and re-encodes request bodies (e.g. nginx with
default `proxy_request_buffering on`)
- Intermediary normalises the `Transfer-Encoding` value (lowercases the
token) before forwarding
- Disable backend keep-alive between the intermediary and Ember
References
External links from the advisory. They lead to third-party sites.