CVE-2023-36478 - CVE House
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Status published High CVE-2023-36478

HTTP/2 HPACK integer overflow and buffer allocation

Vulnerability Description

Eclipse Jetty provides a web server and servlet container. In versions 11.0.0 through 11.0.15, 10.0.0 through 10.0.15, and 9.0.0 through 9.4.52, an integer overflow in `MetaDataBuilder.checkSize` allows for HTTP/2 HPACK header values to exceed their size limit. `MetaDataBuilder.java` determines if a header name or value exceeds the size limit, and throws an exception if the limit is exceeded. However, when length is very large and huffman is true, the multiplication by 4 in line 295 will overflow, and length will become negative. `(_size+length)` will now be negative, and the check on line 296 will not be triggered. Furthermore, `MetaDataBuilder.checkSize` allows for user-entered HPACK header value sizes to be negative, potentially leading to a very large buffer allocation later on when the user-entered size is multiplied by 2. This means that if a user provides a negative length value (or, more precisely, a length value which, when multiplied by the 4/3 fudge factor, is negative), and this length value is a very large positive number when multiplied by 2, then the user can cause a very large buffer to be allocated on the server. Users of HTTP/2 can be impacted by a remote denial of service attack. The issue has been fixed in versions 11.0.16, 10.0.16, and 9.4.53. There are no known workarounds.

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

jetty.project
Vulnerable Versions:
>= 10.0.0, < 10.0.16, >= 11.0.0, < 11.0.16, >= 9.3.0, < 9.4.53

Timeline

Official Publish: October 10th, 2023
Last Modified: February 13th, 2025
Added to House: July 22nd, 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)