Unauthenticated request smuggling via hop-by-hop header stripping
Published Nov 9, 2022 · Updated May 1, 2025
HTTP request smuggling in Varnish Cache 7.0.0 through 7.1.1 and 7.2.0 allows remote attackers to bypass backend host routing. The HTTP/1 parser honors attacker-named hop-by-hop tokens in the Connection header and strips critical headers, including Content-Length and Host, before forwarding the request. Unauthenticated network access to an HTTP/1 listener is sufficient; the framing mismatch supports smuggled requests, while a stripped Host header can bypass VCL host routing.
Summary
What happened
HTTP request smuggling in Varnish Cache 7.0.0 through 7.1.1 and 7.2.0 allows remote attackers to bypass backend host routing. The HTTP/1 parser honors attacker-named hop-by-hop tokens in the Connection header and strips critical headers, including Content-Length and Host, before forwarding the request. Unauthenticated network access to an HTTP/1 listener is sufficient; the framing mismatch supports smuggled requests, while a stripped Host header can bypass VCL host routing.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2022-45059
- Published
- Nov 9, 2022
- Updated
- May 1, 2025
- Vendor
- Unknown vendor
- Product
- Unknown product
- Classifications
- CWE-444, T1190
- Attack vector
- network
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Nov 9, 2022CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 1, 2025Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
Compare your product and version with the public record. A matching version still requires validation against your environment.
Is a vulnerable build present?
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Affected products and versions are unavailable in this record.
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
Labels summarize the accepted research assessment. They do not indicate a test against your environment.
Technologies
Your stack
See the directory against your own environment.
Your stack
Check the software in your environment
Book a demo to see how Hinoki identifies affected software and validates exploitability in your environment.
Book a demo