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Fencer Intel
high 7.5

CVE-2019-16869 json

HTTP Request Smuggling in Netty

published 7y ago modified last mo. also GHSA-p979-4mfw-53vg , EUVD-2019-0710

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
8.6%
EPSS 8.6% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 95%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Netty before 4.1.42.Final mishandles whitespace before the colon in HTTP headers (such as a "Transfer-Encoding : chunked" line), which leads to HTTP request smuggling.

Patch / fix

  • maven io.netty:netty-all 4.1.42.Final
  • netty netty 4.1.42
  • netty Debian 14, Debian 13, Debian 12 1:4.1.33-2

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2019-16869

  • netty-3.9 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 3.9.0.Final-1ubuntu0.1
  • netty-3.9 Ubuntu 18.04 LTS 3.9.9.Final-1+deb9u1build0.18.04.1
  • netty Ubuntu Pro 14.04 LTS 1:3.2.6.Final-2+deb8u2build0.14.04.1~esm1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2019-16869

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • eap7-netty jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 4.1.42-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-jberet jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 1.3.5-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-wildfly jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 7.2.6-5.GA_redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-undertow jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 2.0.28-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el8eap
  • eap7-weld-ejb jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.0.6-3.Final_redhat_00003.1.el8eap
  • eap7-weld-jta jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.0.6-3.Final_redhat_00003.1.el8eap
  • eap7-weld-web jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 3.0.6-3.Final_redhat_00003.1.el8eap
  • eap7-hibernate jboss enterprise application platform 7.2 5.3.14-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap

red hat advisories RHSA-2024:5856RHSA-2020:0161RHSA-2020:0160RHSA-2020:0159

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2019-16869 updated cvss 7.5

netty: HTTP request smuggling by mishandled whitespace before the colon in HTTP headers

  • Red Hat JBoss Fuse 6 netty netty Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3.11 openshift3/ose-logging-elasticsearch5 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift4/ose-logging-elasticsearch5
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings”
  • Red Hat EAP-CD 19 Tech Preview
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:2333
  • Red Hat AMQ
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:0922
  • Red Hat AMQ 7.4.3
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:1445
  • Red Hat Data Grid 7.3.6
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:2321
  • Red Hat Decision Manager 7
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:3196
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.5.0
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2019:3892
  • Red Hat Fuse 7.9
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2021:3140
show 9 more
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:0164
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 for RHEL 6 Server eap7-wildfly 7.2.6-5.GA_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-apache-cxf 3.2.11-1.redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-jberet 1.3.5-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-netty 4.1.42-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, eap7-jackson-core 2.9.10-1.redhat_00003.1.el6eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.28-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el6eap, +71 more
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:0159
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 for RHEL 7 Server eap7-wildfly 7.2.6-5.GA_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-apache-cxf 3.2.11-1.redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-jberet 1.3.5-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-netty 4.1.42-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, eap7-jackson-core 2.9.10-1.redhat_00003.1.el7eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.28-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el7eap, +73 more
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:0160
  • Red Hat JBoss EAP 7.2 for RHEL 8 eap7-wildfly 7.2.6-5.GA_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-apache-cxf 3.2.11-1.redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-jberet 1.3.5-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-netty 4.1.42-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, eap7-jackson-core 2.9.10-1.redhat_00003.1.el8eap, eap7-undertow 2.0.28-2.SP1_redhat_00001.1.el8eap, +71 more
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:0161
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 EUS for RHEL 7 Server eap7-netty 4.1.45-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7, eap7-netty-all 4.1.45-1.Final_redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2024:5856
  • Red Hat Openshift Application Runtimes Vert.x 3.8.3
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2019:3901
  • Red Hat Process Automation 7
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:3197
  • Red Hat Single Sign-On 7.3
    fixed: vendor fix “* Use HTTP/2 instead (clear boundaries between requests) * Disable reuse of backend connections eg. ```http-reuse never``` in HAProxy or whatever equivalent LB settings” RHSA-2020:0445
  • Red Hat A-MQ Clients 2 netty netty Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.1 EUS for RHEL 7 Server eap7-wildfly 7.1.7-2.GA_redhat_00002.1.ep7.el7, eap7-infinispan 8.2.11-1.SP2_redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7, eap7-undertow 1.4.18-12.SP12_redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7, eap7-wildfly-modules 7.1.7-2.GA_redhat_00002.1.ep7.el7, eap7-jackson-databind 2.8.11.5-1.redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7, eap7-infinispan-core 8.2.11-1.SP2_redhat_00001.1.ep7.el7, +7 more Red Hat Satellite 6 candlepin, candlepin-selinux
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
last mo.

Exploit prediction

8.65% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 95% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/netty/netty/issues/9571 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
NVD 2.0 5.0 AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N
GitHub 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
maven io.netty:netty-all
>=4.0.0.Beta1, <4.1.42.Final
4.1.42.Final
maven org.jboss.netty:netty
<=3.2.9.Final
 no fix listed
maven io.netty:netty
>=3.3.0.Final, <=4.0.0.Alpha8
 no fix listed

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.