CVE-2019-18277
Description
From CVE.org
A flaw was found in HAProxy before 2.0.6. In legacy mode, messages featuring a transfer-encoding header missing the "chunked" value were not being correctly rejected. The impact was limited but if combined with the "http-reuse always" setting, it could be used to help construct an HTTP request smuggling attack against a vulnerable component employing a lenient parser that would ignore the content-length header as soon as it saw a transfer-encoding one (even if not entirely valid according to the specification).
Statement
To exploit this vulnerability a vulnerable backend server is required. In particular the server should incorrectly parse the Transfer-Encoding HTTP header.
This issue did not affect the versions of haproxy as shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, and 7 as they did not include support for http-reuse option.
Mitigation
- Reconsider the use of `http-reuse always` if possible
- Disable HTTP Keep-Alive (also called HTTP Connection reuse) in the backend
- Fix the backend server to correctly parse Transfer-Encoding/Content-Length headers
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 6.5 | 7.5 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Network | Network | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | None | None | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | None | N/A |
| Scope | Changed | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | Low | None | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | Low | High | N/A |
| Availability Impact | Low | None | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:L
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Integrity,Non-Repudiation,Access Control
Technical Impact: Unexpected State; Hide Activities; Bypass Protection Mechanism
An attacker could create HTTP messages to exploit a number of weaknesses including 1) the message can trick the web server to associate a URL with another URL's webpage and caching the contents of the webpage (web cache poisoning attack), 2) the message can be structured to bypass the firewall protection mechanisms and gain unauthorized access to a web application, and 3) the message can invoke a script or a page that returns client credentials (similar to a Cross Site Scripting attack).
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