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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS : Waitress vulnerability (USN-5364-1)

high Nessus Plugin ID 159515

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Synopsis

The remote Ubuntu host is missing a security update.

Description

The remote Ubuntu 20.04 LTS / 21.10 host has a package installed that is affected by a vulnerability as referenced in the USN-5364-1 advisory.

 - Waitress is a Web Server Gateway Interface server for Python 2 and 3. When using Waitress versions 2.1.0 and prior behind a proxy that does not properly validate the incoming HTTP request matches the RFC7230 standard, Waitress and the frontend proxy may disagree on where one request starts and where it ends. This would allow requests to be smuggled via the front-end proxy to waitress and later behavior. There are two classes of vulnerability that may lead to request smuggling that are addressed by this advisory: The use of Python's `int()` to parse strings into integers, leading to `+10` to be parsed as `10`, or `0x01` to be parsed as `1`, where as the standard specifies that the string should contain only digits or hex digits;
 and Waitress does not support chunk extensions, however it was discarding them without validating that they did not contain illegal characters. This vulnerability has been patched in Waitress 2.1.1. A workaround is available. When deploying a proxy in front of waitress, turning on any and all functionality to make sure that the request matches the RFC7230 standard. Certain proxy servers may not have this functionality though and users are encouraged to upgrade to the latest version of waitress instead.
 (CVE-2022-24761)

Note that Nessus has not tested for this issue but has instead relied only on the application's self-reported version number.

Solution

Update the affected python3-waitress package.

See Also

https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-5364-1

Plugin Details

Severity: High

ID: 159515

File Name: ubuntu_USN-5364-1.nasl

Version: 1.5

Type: local

Agent: unix

Published: 4/5/2022

Updated: 10/23/2023

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment AWS, Frictionless Assessment Azure, Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Low

Score: 3.6

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: Medium

Base Score: 5

Temporal Score: 4.1

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:P/A:N

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2022-24761

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 7

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:F/RL:O/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:canonical:ubuntu_linux:20.04:-:lts, p-cpe:/a:canonical:ubuntu_linux:python3-waitress

Required KB Items: Host/cpu, Host/Debian/dpkg-l, Host/Ubuntu, Host/Ubuntu/release

Exploit Available: true

Exploit Ease: Exploits are available

Patch Publication Date: 4/5/2022

Vulnerability Publication Date: 3/17/2022

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2022-24761

USN: 5364-1