CVE-2021-31618 - CVE House
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Status published High CVE-2021-31618

NULL pointer dereference on specially crafted HTTP/2 request

Vulnerability Description

Apache HTTP Server protocol handler for the HTTP/2 protocol checks received request headers against the size limitations as configured for the server and used for the HTTP/1 protocol as well. On violation of these restrictions and HTTP response is sent to the client with a status code indicating why the request was rejected. This rejection response was not fully initialised in the HTTP/2 protocol handler if the offending header was the very first one received or appeared in a a footer. This led to a NULL pointer dereference on initialised memory, crashing reliably the child process. Since such a triggering HTTP/2 request is easy to craft and submit, this can be exploited to DoS the server. This issue affected mod_http2 1.15.17 and Apache HTTP Server version 2.4.47 only. Apache HTTP Server 2.4.47 was never released.

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

The following person or organization is credited with identifying this vulnerability, as recorded in the NVD database:

  • Apache HTTP server would like to thank LI ZHI XIN from NSFocus for reporting this.

Affected Vendor

Apache Software Foundation

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Affected Software

Apache HTTP Server
Vulnerable Versions:
2.4.47

Timeline

Official Publish: June 15th, 2021
Last Modified: August 3rd, 2024
Added to House: July 21st, 2026

CVSS Vectors

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

Weaknesses (CWE)