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OpenAdvisories
Medium · 4.8 CVE-2021-21299 EUVD-2021-1600GHSA-6hfq-h8hq-87mfRUSTSEC-2021-0020

Multiple Transfer-Encoding headers misinterprets request payload

Published Feb 11, 2021 · Updated Aug 3, 2024 · Assigned by GitHub_M

Description

hyper is an open-source HTTP library for Rust (crates.io). In hyper from version 0.12.0 and before versions 0.13.10 and 0.14.3 there is a vulnerability that can enable a request smuggling attack. The HTTP server code had a flaw that incorrectly understands some requests with multiple transfer-encoding headers to have a chunked payload, when it should have been rejected as illegal. This combined with an upstream HTTP proxy that understands the request payload boundary differently can result in "request smuggling" or "desync attacks". To determine if vulnerable, all these things must be true: 1) Using hyper as an HTTP server (the client is not affected), 2) Using HTTP/1.1 (HTTP/2 does not use transfer-encoding), 3) Using a vulnerable HTTP proxy upstream to hyper. If an upstream proxy correctly rejects the illegal transfer-encoding headers, the desync attack cannot succeed. If there is no proxy upstream of hyper, hyper cannot start the desync attack, as the client will repair the headers before forwarding. This is fixed in versions 0.14.3 and 0.13.10. As a workaround one can take the following options: 1) Reject requests that contain a `transfer-encoding` header, 2) Ensure any upstream proxy handles `transfer-encoding` correctly.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
hyperium hyper < 0.13.10, >= 0.14.0, < 0.14.3 —

Fixed in Linux distributions

Distributions backport fixes, so the version that fixes this vulnerability differs per release — upgrade to at least the version shown. From the distributions' security trackers and advisories.

ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian 14 rust-hyper 0.14.19-1 —
Debian 13 rust-hyper 0.14.19-1 —
Debian 12 rust-hyper 0.14.19-1 —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
Ubuntu 26.10 rust-hyper No fix yet —
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS rust-hyper No fix yet —
Ubuntu 25.10 rust-hyper No fix yet —
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS rust-hyper No fix yet —
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS rust-hyper No fix yet —
ReleasePackageFixed inAdvisory
openSUSE Tumbleweed spotifyd 0.3.3-9.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:12274-1
openSUSE Tumbleweed tuigreet 0.7.1-6.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:12238-1
openSUSE Tumbleweed wayshot 1.1.9-1.1 openSUSE-SU-2024:12239-1

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
crates.io hyper >= 0.14.0, < 0.14.3 0.14.3 GHSA-6hfq-h8hq-87mf
crates.io hyper >= 0.13.0, < 0.13.10 0.13.10 GHSA-6hfq-h8hq-87mf
crates.io hyper >= 0.12.0, < 0.12.36 0.12.36 GHSA-6hfq-h8hq-87mf
crates.io hyper >= 0.12.0, < 0.12.36 · >= 0.13.0-0, < 0.13.10 · >= 0.14.0-0, < 0.14.3 0.12.36, 0.13.10, 0.14.3 RUSTSEC-2021-0020

Advisories 3

References