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SQUID-2023:2 Multiple issues in HTTP response caching

Critical
yadij published GHSA-543m-w2m2-g255 Oct 21, 2023

Package

squid

Affected versions

< 6.4

Patched versions

6.5

Description

Due to an Improper Handling of Structural Elements
bug Squid is vulnerable to a Denial of Service
attack against HTTP and HTTPS clients.

Due to an Incomplete Filtering of Special Elements
bug Squid is vulnerable to a Denial of Service
attack against HTTP and HTTPS clients.


Severity:

The limits applied for validation of HTTP Response headers are
applied before caching. Different limits may be in place at the
later cache HIT usage of that response.

The limits applied for validation of HTTP Response headers are
applied to each received server response. Squid may grow a cached
HTTP Response header with HTTP 304 updates beyond the configured
maximum header size.

Subsequent parsing to de-serialize a large header from disk cache
can stall or crash the worker process. Resulting in Denial of
Service to all clients using the proxy.

CVSS Score of 9.6
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln-metrics/cvss/v3-calculator?vector=AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H&version=3.1


Updated Packages:

This bug is fixed by Squid version 6.4.

In addition, patches addressing this problem for the stable
releases can be found in our patch archives:

Squid 6:

http://www.squid-cache.org/Versions/v6/SQUID-2023_2.patch
http://www.squid-cache.org/Versions/v6/SQUID-2023_2_b.patch
http://www.squid-cache.org/Versions/v6/SQUID-2023_2_c.patch

If you are using a prepackaged version of Squid then please refer
to the package vendor for availability information on updated
packages.


Determining if your version is vulnerable:

Squid older than v5 have not been tested and are presumed
vulnerable.

Squid v5.x up to and including 5.9 are vulnerable.

Squid v6.x up to and including 6.3 are vulnerable.


Workaround:

Disable disk caching by removing all cache_dir directives from
squid.conf.


Contact details for the Squid project:

For installation / upgrade support on binary packaged versions
of Squid: Your first point of contact should be your binary
package vendor.

If you install and build Squid from the original Squid sources
then the [email protected] mailing list is your
primary support point. For subscription details see
http://www.squid-cache.org/Support/mailing-lists.html.

For reporting of non-security bugs in the latest STABLE release
the squid bugzilla database should be used
https://bugs.squid-cache.org/.

For reporting of security sensitive bugs send an email to the
[email protected] mailing list. It's a closed
list (though anyone can post) and security related bug reports
are treated in confidence until the impact has been established.


Credits:

This vulnerability was independently discovered by Joshua Rogers
of Opera Software and by The Measurement Factory.

Fixed by The Measurement Factory.


Revision history:

2019-09-11: Initial report of header growth caused by HTTP 304.
2021-03-04: Initial report of caching of huge response headers.
2023-04-28 02:40:03 UTC Initial patches released.
2023-11-01 22:28:57 UTC Additional Squid-6 patches released.


END

Severity

Critical

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
High
Availability
High

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:H/A:H

CVE ID

CVE-2023-5824