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Improper Access Control in Apache Tomcat

High severity GitHub Reviewed Published May 13, 2022 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Feb 22, 2024

Package

maven org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-catalina (Maven)

Affected versions

>= 7.0.0, < 7.0.72
>= 8.0.0, < 8.5.5

Patched versions

7.0.72
8.5.5

Description

Apache Tomcat 7.x through 7.0.70 and 8.x through 8.5.4, when the CGI Servlet is enabled, follows RFC 3875 section 4.1.18 and therefore does not protect applications from the presence of untrusted client data in the HTTP_PROXY environment variable, which might allow remote attackers to redirect an application's outbound HTTP traffic to an arbitrary proxy server via a crafted Proxy header in an HTTP request, aka an "httpoxy" issue. NOTE: the vendor states "A mitigation is planned for future releases of Tomcat, tracked as CVE-2016-5388"; in other words, this is not a CVE ID for a vulnerability.

References

Published by the National Vulnerability Database Jul 19, 2016
Published to the GitHub Advisory Database May 13, 2022
Reviewed Jul 6, 2022
Last updated Feb 22, 2024

Severity

High

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
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
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:3.0/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

EPSS score

94.822%
(99th percentile)

Weaknesses

CVE ID

CVE-2016-5388

GHSA ID

GHSA-v646-rx6w-r3qq

Source code

Credits

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