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CVE-2022-24668NVD status: Modified

SwiftNIO HTTP2: Improper Handling of Unexpected Data Type

CVE-2022-24668 is a high-severity improper handling of unexpected data type vulnerability in SwiftNIO HTTP2 from Swift Project, with a CVSS 3.1 base score of 7.5 out of 10. It can be exploited remotely over the network by an unauthenticated attacker, without any action from a user. Affected SwiftNIO HTTP2 versions: 1.0.0; 1.19.1 and earlier. The record does not name a fixed version, so check the vendor advisory. There is no confirmed exploitation so far. EPSS estimates a 1.12% chance of exploitation within 30 days, higher than 67% of scored CVEs.

Next patch cycle

High severity with no evidence of exploitation so far.

What to do

  1. Update Swiftnio Http/2 to 1.19.2 or a later version.
  2. Read the advisory on github.com for workarounds and exact fixed builds.
  3. Until you can update, restrict network access to the affected service so it is not reachable from untrusted networks.

Affected products and versions

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed in
Swift ProjectSwiftNIO HTTP21.0.0; 1.19.1 and earlierNot stated
AppleSwiftnio Http/21.0.0 up to, but not including, 1.19.21.19.2

Version data comes from the organisation that assigned the CVE. Confirm against the vendor advisory before deciding you are unaffected.

How the severity score breaks down

Attack vector
NetworkCan be exploited remotely over a network, including the internet.
Attack complexity
LowNo special conditions are needed; the attack works reliably.
Privileges required
NoneNo account or login is needed.
User interaction
NoneNo action by a victim is required.
Scope
UnchangedImpact stays within the vulnerable component.
Confidentiality
NoneNo data is disclosed.
Integrity
NoneNothing can be modified.
Availability
HighThe component can be taken down completely.

Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H. Scored by NVD.

Scoring systemScoreSeverityScored by
CVSS 3.17.5HighNVD
CVSS 2.05.0MediumNVD

Official description

A program using swift-nio-http2 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack caused by a network peer sending ALTSVC or ORIGIN frames. This attack affects all swift-nio-http2 versions from 1.0.0 to 1.19.1. This vulnerability is caused by a logical error after frame parsing but before frame handling. ORIGIN and ALTSVC frames are not currently supported by swift-nio-http2, and should be ignored. However, one code path that encounters them has a deliberate trap instead. This was left behind from the original development process and was never removed. Sending an ALTSVC or ORIGIN frame does not require any special permission, so any HTTP/2 connection peer may send such a frame. For clients, this means any server to which they connect may launch this attack. For servers, anyone they allow to connect to them may launch such an attack. The attack is low-effort: it takes very little resources to send one of these frames. The impact on availability is high: receiving the frame immediately crashes the server, dropping all in-flight connections and causing the service to need to restart. It is straightforward for an attacker to repeatedly send these frames, so attackers require very few resources to achieve a substantial denial of service. The attack does not have any confidentiality or integrity risks in and of itself. This is a controlled, intentional crash. However, sudden process crashes can lead to violations of invariants in services, so it is possible that this attack can be used to trigger an error condition that has confidentiality or integrity risks. The risk can be mitigated if untrusted peers can be prevented from communicating with the service. This mitigation is not available to many services. The issue is fixed by rewriting the parsing code to correctly handle the condition. The issue was found by automated fuzzing by oss-fuzz.

Source: the CVE record as published by its numbering authority, via NVD and CVE.org.

The underlying weakness: Improper Handling of Unexpected Data Type

The product does not handle or incorrectly handles when a particular element is not the expected type, e.g. it expects a digit (0-9) but is provided with a letter (A-Z).

How developers prevent this class of flaw

  • Inputs should be decoded and canonicalized to the application's current internal representation before being validated (CWE-180). Make sure that the application does not decode the same input twice (CWE-174). Such errors could be used to bypass allowlist validation schemes by introducing dangerous inputs after they have been checked.

More Improper Handling of Unexpected Data Type vulnerabilities (CWE-241)

Timeline

  1. CVE record published.
  2. Record last changed materially (score, affected products, status or references).

References

Other vulnerabilities in SwiftNIO HTTP2

All SwiftNIO HTTP2 vulnerabilities

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