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CWE-444

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CWE-444

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

Base
Incomplete

Description

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.

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client/server without the intermediary being aware of it.","This weakness is usually the result of the usage\n\t of outdated or incompatible HTTP protocol versions in the\n\t HTTP agents."]}

Parent Weaknesses (ChildOf)

Common Consequences

Scope

Integrity
Non-Repudiation
Access Control

Impact

Unexpected State, Hide Activities, Bypass Protection Mechanism

Potential Mitigations

Implementation

Use a web server that employs a strict HTTP parsing procedure, such as Apache [REF-433].

Implementation

Use only SSL communication.

Implementation

Terminate the client session after each request.

System Configuration

Turn all pages to non-cacheable.

CVE-2022-24766

SSL/TLS-capable proxy allows HTTP smuggling when used in tandem with HTTP/1.0 services, due to inconsistent interpretation and input sanitization of HTTP messages within the body of another message

CVE-2021-37147

Chain: caching proxy server has improper input validation (CWE-20) of headers, allowing HTTP response smuggling (CWE-444) using an "LF line ending"

CVE-2020-8287

Node.js platform allows request smuggling via two Transfer-Encoding headers

CVE-2006-6276

Web servers allow request smuggling via inconsistent HTTP headers.

CVE-2005-2088

HTTP server allows request smuggling with both a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header and a Content-Length header

CVE-2005-2089

HTTP server allows request smuggling with both a "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" header and a Content-Length header

Applicable Platforms

Not Language-Specific

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