CVE-2021-21295

MEDIUM

Netty <4.1.60.Final - SSRF

Title source: llm
STIX 2.1

Description

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`.

References (91)

... and 71 more

Scores

CVSS v3 5.9
EPSS 0.0038
EPSS Percentile 59.3%
Attack Vector NETWORK
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Details

CWE
CWE-444
Status published
Products (11)
apache/kudu < 1.16.0
apache/zookeeper 3.5.9
debian/debian_linux 10.0
io.netty/netty 0Maven
io.netty/netty-codec-http2 4.0.0 - 4.1.60.FinalMaven
netapp/oncommand_api_services
netapp/oncommand_workflow_automation
netty/netty < 4.1.60
oracle/communications_cloud_native_core_policy 1.14.0
org.jboss.netty/netty 0Maven
... and 1 more
Published Mar 09, 2021
Tracked Since Feb 18, 2026