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OutOfMemoryError for large multipart without filename read via request.getParameter()

Moderate
jmcc0nn3ll published GHSA-qw69-rqj8-6qw8 Apr 18, 2023

Package

maven jetty-server (Maven)

Affected versions

<=9.4.50, <=10.0.13, <=11.0.13

Patched versions

9.4.51, 10.0.14, 11.0.14

Description

Impact

Servlets with multipart support (e.g. annotated with @MultipartConfig) that call HttpServletRequest.getParameter() or HttpServletRequest.getParts() may cause OutOfMemoryError when the client sends a multipart request with a part that has a name but no filename and a very large content.

This happens even with the default settings of fileSizeThreshold=0 which should stream the whole part content to disk.

An attacker client may send a large multipart request and cause the server to throw OutOfMemoryError.
However, the server may be able to recover after the OutOfMemoryError and continue its service -- although it may take some time.

A very large number of parts may cause the same problem.

Patches

Patched in Jetty versions

  • 9.4.51.v20230217 - via PR #9345
  • 10.0.14 - via PR #9344
  • 11.0.14 - via PR #9344

Workarounds

Multipart parameter maxRequestSize must be set to a non-negative value, so the whole multipart content is limited (although still read into memory).
Limiting multipart parameter maxFileSize won't be enough because an attacker can send a large number of parts that summed up will cause memory issues.

References

Severity

Moderate
5.3
/ 10

CVSS base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
Low
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L

CVE ID

CVE-2023-26048

Credits