Netty
CVE-2021-21295
MEDIUM
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A06:2025 - Insecure Design
ASVS 5.0
V4 - API and Web Service HTTP request consistency
|
| Impact | CVSS score of 5.9 (MEDIUM). Attack characteristics: network attack vector, high complexity, no privileges required, no user interaction not required. |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | A remote attacker could manipulate HTTP request interpretation between frontend and backend servers by sending crafted requests to the affected application. No authentication is required to exploit this vulnerability. |
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Alert meAnalysisAI
Netty is an open-source, asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. Rated medium severity (CVSS 5.9), this vulnerability is remotely exploitable, no authentication required. This HTTP Request/Response Smuggling vulnerability could allow attackers to manipulate HTTP request interpretation between frontend and backend servers.
RemediationAI
A vendor patch is available. Apply the latest security update as soon as possible. Enforce strict HTTP parsing, normalize requests at proxy layer, use HTTP/2 end-to-end, reject ambiguous headers.
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 3 packages in maven
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
This vulnerability is classified as HTTP Request/Response Smuggling (CWE-444), which allows attackers to manipulate HTTP request interpretation between frontend and backend servers. Netty is an open-source, asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. In Netty (io.netty:netty-codec-http2) before version 4.1.60.Final there is a vulnerability that enables request smuggling. If a Content-Length header is present in the original HTTP/2 request, the field is not validated by Http2MultiplexHandler as it is propagated up. This is fine as long as the request is not proxied through as HTTP/1.1. If the request comes in as an HTTP/2 stream, gets converted into the HTTP/1.1 domain objects (HttpRequest, HttpContent, etc.) via Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec and then sent up to the child channel's pipeline and proxied through a remote peer as HTTP/1.1 this may result in request smuggling. In a proxy case, users may assume the content-length is validated somehow, which is not the case. If the request is forwarded to a backend channel that is a HTTP/1.1 connection, the Content-Length now has meaning and needs to be checked. An attacker can smuggle requests inside the body as it gets downgraded from HTTP/2 to HTTP/1.1. For an example attack refer to the linked GitHub Advisory. Users are only affected if all of this is true: HTTP2MultiplexCodec or Http2FrameCodec is used, Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec is used to convert to HTTP/1.1 objects, and these HTTP/1.1 objects are forwarded to another remote peer. This has been patched in 4.1.60.Final As a workaround, the user can do the validation by themselves by implementing a custom ChannelInboundHandler that is put in the ChannelPipeline behind Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec. Affected products include: Netty, Netapp Oncommand Api Services, Netapp Oncommand Workflow Automation, Debian Debian Linux, Quarkus. Version information: version 4.1.60..
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Severity by source
AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Primary rating from NVD · only source for this CVE.
CVSS VectorNVD
DescriptionNVD
Netty is an open-source, asynchronous event-driven network application framework for rapid development of maintainable high performance protocol servers & clients. In Netty (io.netty:netty-codec-http2) before version 4.1.60.Final there is a vulnerability that enables request smuggling. If a Content-Length header is present in the original HTTP/2 request, the field is not validated by Http2MultiplexHandler as it is propagated up. This is fine as long as the request is not proxied through as HTTP/1.1. If the request comes in as an HTTP/2 stream, gets converted into the HTTP/1.1 domain objects (HttpRequest, HttpContent, etc.) via Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec and then sent up to the child channel's pipeline and proxied through a remote peer as HTTP/1.1 this may result in request smuggling. In a proxy case, users may assume the content-length is validated somehow, which is not the case. If the request is forwarded to a backend channel that is a HTTP/1.1 connection, the Content-Length now has meaning and needs to be checked. An attacker can smuggle requests inside the body as it gets downgraded from HTTP/2 to HTTP/1.1. For an example attack refer to the linked GitHub Advisory. Users are only affected if all of this is true: HTTP2MultiplexCodec or Http2FrameCodec is used, Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec is used to convert to HTTP/1.1 objects, and these HTTP/1.1 objects are forwarded to another remote peer. This has been patched in 4.1.60.Final As a workaround, the user can do the validation by themselves by implementing a custom ChannelInboundHandler that is put in the ChannelPipeline behind Http2StreamFrameToHttpObjectCodec.
Threat Intelligence Overview
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
GitHub
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
HTTP request smuggling exploits inconsistencies in how front-end and back-end servers parse HTTP message boundaries.
Information disclosure occurs when an application unintentionally exposes sensitive data that aids attackers in reconnaissance or directly compromises security.
Affected Products (CPE)NVD
Denial of service against HTTP/2 server implementations allows remote unauthenticated attackers to exhaust server resour
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Certificate revocation-check bypass in the Netty network framework's OCSP client (io.netty:netty-handler-ssl-ocsp) affec
netty-incubator-codec-ohttp is the OHTTP implementation for netty. Rated critical severity (CVSS 9.1), this vulnerabilit
The netty incubator codec.bhttp is a java language binary http parser. Rated high severity (CVSS 8.1), this vulnerabilit
Netty, an asynchronous, event-driven network application framework, has a vulnerability starting in version 4.1.91.Final
Memory exhaustion in Netty's SctpMessageCompletionHandler (netty-transport-sctp) allows unauthenticated remote peers to
Compression-amplification denial of service in the Netty network framework (versions prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16.F
Memory-amplification denial of service in the Netty network framework (SPDY/3.1 codec) prior to 4.1.136.Final and 4.2.16
Memory-exhaustion denial of service in Netty's HTTP/3 codec (Http3FrameCodec) affects all releases prior to 4.2.16.Final
Netty's HTTP CORS handler silently rewrites the Vary response header to Vary: Origin in releases before 4.1.137.Final an
Denial of service in the Netty HTTP/3 codec (io.netty:netty-codec-http3) prior to version 4.2.15.Final allows remote una
Exploit-DB