GHSA-m394-8rww-3jr7

Suggest an improvement
Source
https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-m394-8rww-3jr7
Import Source
https://github.com/github/advisory-database/blob/main/advisories/github-reviewed/2021/03/GHSA-m394-8rww-3jr7/GHSA-m394-8rww-3jr7.json
JSON Data
https://api.test.osv.dev/v1/vulns/GHSA-m394-8rww-3jr7
Aliases
Related
Published
2021-03-10T03:46:47Z
Modified
2025-09-15T07:43:29.080791Z
Severity
  • 5.3 (Medium) CVSS_V3 - CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L CVSS Calculator
Summary
DOS vulnerability for Quoted Quality CSV headers
Details

Impact

When Jetty handles a request containing request headers with a large number of “quality” (i.e. q) parameters (such as what are seen on the Accept, Accept-Encoding, and Accept-Language request headers), the server may enter a denial of service (DoS) state due to high CPU usage while sorting the list of values based on their quality values. A single request can easily consume minutes of CPU time before it is even dispatched to the application.

The only features within Jetty that can trigger this behavior are:

  • Default Error Handling - the Accept request header with the QuotedQualityCSV is used to determine what kind of content to send back to the client (html, text, json, xml, etc)
  • StatisticsServlet - uses the Accept request header with the QuotedQualityCSV to determine what kind of content to send back to the client (xml, json, text, html, etc)
  • HttpServletRequest.getLocale() - uses the Accept-Language request header with the QuotedQualityCSV to determine which “preferred” language is returned on this call.
  • HttpservletRequest.getLocales() - is similar to the above, but returns an ordered list of locales based on the quality values on the Accept-Language request header.
  • DefaultServlet - uses the Accept-Encoding request header with the QuotedQualityCSV to determine which kind of pre-compressed content should be sent back for static content (content that is not matched against a url-pattern in your web app)

Versions

QuotedQualityCSV was introduced to Jetty 9.3.9.v20160517 and the bug that introduced the vulnerability was in 9.4.6.v20170531.

Currently, known vulnerable versions include:

  • 9.4.6.v20170531 thru to 9.4.36.v20210114
  • 10.0.0
  • 11.0.0

Workarounds

Quality ordered values are used infrequently by jetty so they can be avoided by:

  • Do not use the default error page/handler.
  • Do not deploy the StatisticsServlet exposed to the network
  • Do not call getLocale API
  • Do not enable precompressed static content in the DefaultServlet

Patches

All patches are available for download from the Eclipse Jetty website at https://www.eclipse.org/jetty/download.php - 9.4.37.v20210219 and greater - 10.0.1 and greater - 11.0.1 and greater

Database specific 
{
    "nvd_published_at": "2021-02-26T22:15:00Z",
    "cwe_ids": [
        "CWE-400"
    ],
    "severity": "MODERATE",
    "github_reviewed": true,
    "github_reviewed_at": "2021-03-10T03:46:22Z"
}
References

Affected packages

Maven / org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server

Package

Name
org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server
View open source insights on deps.dev
Purl
pkg:maven/org.eclipse.jetty/jetty-server

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
9.4.6
Fixed
9.4.37

Affected versions

9.*

9.4.6.v20170531
9.4.6.v20180619
9.4.7.RC0
9.4.7.v20170914
9.4.7.v20180619
9.4.8.v20171121
9.4.8.v20180619
9.4.9.v20180320
9.4.10.RC0
9.4.10.RC1
9.4.10.v20180503
9.4.11.v20180605
9.4.12.RC0
9.4.12.RC1
9.4.12.RC2
9.4.12.v20180830
9.4.13.v20181111
9.4.14.v20181114
9.4.15.v20190215
9.4.16.v20190411
9.4.17.v20190418
9.4.18.v20190429
9.4.19.v20190610
9.4.20.v20190813
9.4.21.v20190926
9.4.22.v20191022
9.4.23.v20191118
9.4.24.v20191120
9.4.25.v20191220
9.4.26.v20200117
9.4.27.v20200227
9.4.28.v20200408
9.4.29.v20200521
9.4.30.v20200611
9.4.31.v20200723
9.4.32.v20200930
9.4.33.v20201020
9.4.34.v20201102
9.4.35.v20201120
9.4.36.v20210114

Maven / org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server

Package

Name
org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server
View open source insights on deps.dev
Purl
pkg:maven/org.eclipse.jetty/jetty-server

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
10.0.0
Fixed
10.0.1

Affected versions

10.*

10.0.0

Maven / org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server

Package

Name
org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-server
View open source insights on deps.dev
Purl
pkg:maven/org.eclipse.jetty/jetty-server

Affected ranges

Type
ECOSYSTEM
Events
Introduced
11.0.0
Fixed
11.0.1

Affected versions

11.*

11.0.0