CVE-2023-28016
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 · uneditedHost Header Injection vulnerability in the HCL BigFix OSD Bare Metal Server version 311.12 or lower allows attacker to supply invalid input to cause the OSD Bare Metal Server to perform a redirect to an attacker-controlled domain.
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 · high confidenceHost Header Injection vulnerability in HCL BigFix OSD Bare Metal Server versions 311.12 and below allows unauthenticated attackers to manipulate the HTTP Host header to cause the server to redirect users to attacker-controlled domains. This occurs because the application trusts the Host header value without proper validation when constructing redirect responses.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
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<= 311.12CVSS 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
- Changed
- Confidentiality
- Low
- Integrity
- Low
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Identify installed BigFix OSD Bare Metal Server versionLocate the BigFix OSD Bare Metal Server installation and check the version information, typically found in the product UI under About or in the installation directory metadataAffected if The installed version is 311.12 or lower (any version up to and including 311.12)
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Verify HTTP Host header handling in redirectsSend an HTTP request to the server with a manipulated Host header (such as Host: attacker-controlled-domain.com) and observe whether the server includes this value in any redirect (3xx) response Location headerAffected if The server returns a redirect response that uses the attacker-supplied Host header value in the Location header without validation
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Check for Host header validation configurationExamine the web server configuration (IIS, Apache, or embedded server) hosting the BigFix OSD application for any whitelist-based Host header validation rulesAffected if No Host header validation is configured, or the application relies solely on the Host header value for constructing redirect URLs
A user is affected if their BigFix OSD Bare Metal Server version is 311.12 or below AND the server reflects unvalidated Host header values in redirect responses.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
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.
From vendor dataImplement strict whitelist-based validation of the Host header at the application or web server level, and avoid using the Host header value in redirect URLs without sanitization. Consider configuring the web server to reject requests with unexpected Host header values.
- Consultation2.0 h
- Implementation4.0 h
- Testing3.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
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Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2023-28016 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2023-28016 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
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