LighttpdWeb server / proxy

CVE-2025-12642

CRITICAL · 9.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2025-11-03
Patch available
A vendor patch is available. No clean upgrade release — apply the published patch.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click 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
lighttpd1.4.80 incorrectly merged trailer fields into headers after http request parsing. This behavior can be exploited to conduct HTTP Header Smuggling attacks. Successful exploitation may allow an attacker to: * Bypass access control rules * Inject unsafe input into backend logic that trusts request headers * Execute HTTP Request Smuggling attacks under some conditions This issue affects lighttpd1.4.80

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
LighttpdWeb server / proxy
Affected:= 1.4.80

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
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
None

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/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
Patch available Apply the vendor patch
Vendor patch github.com →
Recommended fix High confidence
  1. 1. Navigate to the lighttpd source directory
  2. 2. Fetch the vendor patch from commit 35cb89c103877de62d6b63d0804255475d77e5e1: `git fetch origin 35cb89c103877de62d6b63d0804255475d77e5e1`
  3. 3. Apply the patch: `git cherry-pick 35cb89c103877de62d6b63d0804255475d77e5e1`
  4. 4. Recompile lighttpd from source with the patched code
  5. 5. Replace the vulnerable binary with the newly compiled version
  6. 6. Restart the lighttpd service to load the fixed binary
  7. 7. Verify the fix by testing HTTP requests with trailer fields to ensure they are no longer merged into headers

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

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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-2025-12642 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

A place for practitioners to share what actually worked: a mitigation you’ve tested, a configuration change, a version- or environment-specific caveat, or a link to a verified patch. The most useful notes rise to the top as peers upvote them, so the signal stays high.

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