CVE-2023-34036 Forwarded header exploit with Spring HATEOAS on WebFlux

2023-07-1710:00:43

CWE-644

vmware

www.cve.org

spring hateoas

webflux

reactive web applications

malicious forwarded headers

hypermedia-based responses

trusted proxy

http server

5.3 Medium

CVSS3

Attack Vector

NETWORK

Attack Complexity

LOW

Privileges Required

NONE

User Interaction

NONE

Scope

UNCHANGED

Confidentiality Impact

NONE

Integrity Impact

LOW

Availability Impact

NONE

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N

5.5 Medium

AI Score

Confidence

High

0.001 Low

EPSS

Percentile

30.1%

JSON

Reactive web applications that use Spring HATEOAS to produce hypermedia-based responses might be exposed to malicious forwarded headers if they are not behind a trusted proxy that ensures correctness of such headers, or if they don’t have anything else in place to handle (and possibly discard) forwarded headers either in WebFlux or at the level of the underlying HTTP server.

For the application to be affected, it needs to satisfy the following requirements:

It needs to use the reactive web stack (Spring WebFlux) and Spring HATEOAS to create links in hypermedia-based responses.
The application infrastructure does not guard against clients submitting (X-)Forwarded… headers.

CNA Affected

[
  {
    "defaultStatus": "unaffected",
    "platforms": [
      "Windows",
      "MacOS",
      "Linux",
      "Android",
      "ARM",
      "64 bit",
      "iOS",
      "32 bit",
      "x86"
    ],
    "product": "Spring HATEOAS",
    "vendor": "Spring",
    "versions": [
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "1.5.4 or older"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "2.0.4 or older"
      },
      {
        "status": "affected",
        "version": "2.1.0"
      }
    ]
  }
]