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GHSA-hmr7-m48g-48f6

MediumCVSS 5.3 / 10
Published Sep 14, 2023·Last modified Feb 4, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

Impact

Jetty accepts the '+' character proceeding the content-length value in a HTTP/1 header field. This is more permissive than allowed by the RFC and other servers routinely reject such requests with 400 responses. There is no known exploit scenario, but it is conceivable that request smuggling could result if jetty is used in combination with a server that does not close the connection after sending such a 400 response.

Workarounds

There is no workaround as there is no known exploit scenario.

Original Report

RFC 9110 Secion 8.6 defined the value of Content-Length header should be a string of 0-9 digits. However we found that Jetty accepts "+" prefixed Content-Length, which could lead to potential HTTP request smuggling.

Payload:

 POST / HTTP/1.1
 Host: a.com
 Content-Length: +16
 Connection: close
 ​
 0123456789abcdef

When sending this payload to Jetty, it can successfully parse and identify the length.

When sending this payload to NGINX, Apache HTTPd or other HTTP servers/parsers, they will return 400 bad request.

This behavior can lead to HTTP request smuggling and can be leveraged to bypass WAF or IDS.

Risk Scores
Base Score
5.3

The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a low impact on the integrity of the data.

Threat Intelligence
4.9

Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.

EPSS
1.07%

The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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