CVE-2019-16785 - CVE House
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Status published High CVE-2019-16785

HTTP Request Smuggling: LF vs CRLF handling in Waitress

Vulnerability Description

Waitress through version 1.3.1 implemented a "MAY" part of the RFC7230 which states: "Although the line terminator for the start-line and header fields is the sequence CRLF, a recipient MAY recognize a single LF as a line terminator and ignore any preceding CR." Unfortunately if a front-end server does not parse header fields with an LF the same way as it does those with a CRLF it can lead to the front-end and the back-end server parsing the same HTTP message in two different ways. This can lead to a potential for HTTP request smuggling/splitting whereby Waitress may see two requests while the front-end server only sees a single HTTP message. This issue is fixed in Waitress 1.4.0.

Impact Analysis

Refer to official advisory for detailed impact metrics.

Remediation

Ensure systems are updated to the latest vendor-supplied patch levels.

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Credits & Attribution

No credits recorded in the NVD database.

Affected Vendor

Affected Software

Waitress
Vulnerable Versions:
<= 1.3.1

Timeline

Official Publish: December 20th, 2019
Last Modified: August 5th, 2024
Added to House: July 20th, 2026

CVSS Vectors

V3: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N

Weaknesses (CWE)