Debian LinuxOperating system · Debian

CVE-2021-43797

MEDIUM · 6.5 CVSS v3.1 Published 2021-12-09
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 2.5.3 / 4.1.71 or later.
See remediation →
72/100
Remediation priority · Elevated
Remotely reachable No privileges Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
Netty is an asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. Netty prior to version 4.1.71.Final skips control chars when they are present at the beginning / end of the header name. It should instead fail fast as these are not allowed by the spec and could lead to HTTP request smuggling. Failing to do the validation might cause netty to "sanitize" header names before it forward these to another remote system when used as proxy. This remote system can't see the invalid usage anymore, and therefore does not do the validation itself. Users should upgrade to version 4.1.71.Final.

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis

A detailed technical summary for this CVE is being prepared.

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Debian LinuxOperating system
Affected:= 10.0= 11.0
NettyApplication
Affected:< 4.1.71
QuarkusApplication
Affected:< 2.5.3
Oncommand Workflow AutomationApplication
Affected:all versions
SnapcenterApplication
Affected:all versions
Banking Deposits And Lines Of Credit ServicingApplication
Affected:= 2.7
Banking Party ManagementApplication
Affected:= 2.7.0
Banking PlatformApplication
Affected:= 2.6.2

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
Required
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
None

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

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 2.5.3 / 4.1.71 or later
Fixed in 2.5.34.1.71
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence

Netty 4.1.71.Final or later (or Quarkus 2.5.3+ for Quarkus users)

  1. Identify the current Netty version in use by examining dependency management files (pom.xml, build.gradle, requirements.txt, or similar)
  2. Upgrade Netty to version 4.1.71.Final or later by updating the dependency version in your build configuration
  3. For Quarkus users: Upgrade to Quarkus 2.5.3 or later which includes the fixed Netty version
  4. For other products using Netty as a dependency: Rebuild/recompile the application to pull in the updated Netty version
  5. For products that bundle Netty directly (Oncommand Workflow Automation, Snapcenter, Banking products): Apply vendor-provided patches when available or upgrade to patched releases
  6. Verify the fix by testing HTTP header handling with edge-case control characters
Caveat Minor: Applications relying on the incorrect behavior of accepting control characters may need adjustment if they were intentionally using such headers

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $1,600. Get the upgrade done

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-43797 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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What belongs here
  • Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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