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Connection leaking on idle timeout when TCP congested

High
joakime published GHSA-rggv-cv7r-mw98 Feb 26, 2024

Package

maven org.eclipse.jetty.http2:http2-common (Maven)

Affected versions

>= 9.3.0, <= 9.4.53
>= 10.0.0, <= 10.0.19
>= 11.0.0, <= 11.0.19

Patched versions

9.4.54
10.0.20
11.0.20
maven org.eclipse.jetty.http2:jetty-http2-common (Maven)
>= 12.0.0, <= 12.0.5
12.0.6
maven org.eclipse.jetty.http3:http3-common (Maven)
>= 10.0.8, <= 10.0.19
>= 11.0.8, <= 11.0.19
10.0.20
11.0.20
maven org.eclipse.jetty.http3:jetty-http3-common (Maven)
>= 12.0.0, <= 12.0.5
12.0.6

Description

Impact

If an HTTP/2 connection gets TCP congested, when an idle timeout occurs the HTTP/2 session is marked as closed, and then a GOAWAY frame is queued to be written.
However it is not written because the connection is TCP congested.
When another idle timeout period elapses, it is then supposed to hard close the connection, but it delegates to the HTTP/2 session which reports that it has already been closed so it does not attempt to hard close the connection.

This leaves the connection in ESTABLISHED state (i.e. not closed), TCP congested, and idle.

An attacker can cause many connections to end up in this state, and the server may run out of file descriptors, eventually causing the server to stop accepting new connections from valid clients.

The client may also be impacted (if the server does not read causing a TCP congestion), but the issue is more severe for servers.

Patches

Patched versions:

  • 9.4.54
  • 10.0.20
  • 11.0.20
  • 12.0.6

Workarounds

Disable HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 support until you can upgrade to a patched version of Jetty.
HTTP/1.x is not affected.

References

Severity

High

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2024-22201

Weaknesses

Credits