While investigating bug 64830 it was discovered that Apache Tomcat 10.0.0-M1 to 10.0.0-M9, 9.0.0-M1 to 9.0.39 and 8.5.0 to 8.5.59 could re-use an HTTP request header value from the previous stream received on an HTTP/2 connection for the request associated with the subsequent stream. While this would most likely lead to an error and the closure of the HTTP/2 connection, it is possible that information could leak between requests.

The payload length in a WebSocket frame was not correctly validated in Apache Tomcat 10.0.0-M1 to 10.0.0-M6, 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.36, 8.5.0 to 8.5.56 and 7.0.27 to 7.0.104. Invalid payload lengths could trigger an infinite loop. Multiple requests with invalid payload lengths could lead to a denial of service.

An h2c direct connection to Apache Tomcat 10.0.0-M1 to 10.0.0-M6, 9.0.0.M5 to 9.0.36 and 8.5.1 to 8.5.56 did not release the HTTP/1.1 processor after the upgrade to HTTP/2. If a sufficient number of such requests were made, an OutOfMemoryException could occur leading to a denial of service.

A specially crafted sequence of HTTP/2 requests sent to Apache Tomcat 10.0.0-M1 to 10.0.0-M5, 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.35 and 8.5.0 to 8.5.55 could trigger high CPU usage for several seconds. If a sufficient number of such requests were made on concurrent HTTP/2 connections, the server could become unresponsive.

When using Apache Tomcat versions 10.0.0-M1 to 10.0.0-M4, 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.34, 8.5.0 to 8.5.54 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.103 if a) an attacker is able to control the contents and name of a file on the server; and b) the server is configured to use the PersistenceManager with a FileStore; and c) the PersistenceManager is configured with sessionAttributeValueClassNameFilter="null" (the default unless a SecurityManager is used) or a sufficiently lax filter to allow the attacker provided object to be deserialized; and d) the attacker knows the relative file path from the storage location used by FileStore to the file the attacker has control over; then, using a specifically crafted request, the attacker will be able to trigger remote code execution via deserialization of the file under their control. Note that all of conditions a) to d) must be true for the attack to succeed.

When using the Apache JServ Protocol (AJP), care must be taken when trusting incoming connections to Apache Tomcat. Tomcat treats AJP connections as having higher trust than, for example, a similar HTTP connection. If such connections are available to an attacker, they can be exploited in ways that may be surprising. In Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.0.30, 8.5.0 to 8.5.50 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.99, Tomcat shipped with an AJP Connector enabled by default that listened on all configured IP addresses. It was expected (and recommended in the security guide) that this Connector would be disabled if not required. This vulnerability report identified a mechanism that allowed: - returning arbitrary files from anywhere in the web application - processing any file in the web application as a JSP Further, if the web application allowed file upload and stored those files within the web application (or the attacker was able to control the content of the web application by some other means) then this, along with the ability to process a file as a JSP, made remote code execution possible. It is important to note that mitigation is only required if an AJP port is accessible to untrusted users. Users wishing to take a defence-in-depth approach and block the vector that permits returning arbitrary files and execution as JSP may upgrade to Apache Tomcat 9.0.31, 8.5.51 or 7.0.100 or later. A number of changes were made to the default AJP Connector configuration in 9.0.31 to harden the default configuration. It is likely that users upgrading to 9.0.31, 8.5.51 or 7.0.100 or later will need to make small changes to their configurations.

In Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.30, 8.5.0 to 8.5.50 and 7.0.0 to 7.0.99 the HTTP header parsing code used an approach to end-of-line parsing that allowed some invalid HTTP headers to be parsed as valid. This led to a possibility of HTTP Request Smuggling if Tomcat was located behind a reverse proxy that incorrectly handled the invalid Transfer-Encoding header in a particular manner. Such a reverse proxy is considered unlikely.

The refactoring present in Apache Tomcat 9.0.28 to 9.0.30, 8.5.48 to 8.5.50 and 7.0.98 to 7.0.99 introduced a regression. The result of the regression was that invalid Transfer-Encoding headers were incorrectly processed leading to a possibility of HTTP Request Smuggling if Tomcat was located behind a reverse proxy that incorrectly handled the invalid Transfer-Encoding header in a particular manner. Such a reverse proxy is considered unlikely.

When Apache Tomcat 9.0.0.M1 to 9.0.28, 8.5.0 to 8.5.47, 7.0.0 and 7.0.97 is configured with the JMX Remote Lifecycle Listener, a local attacker without access to the Tomcat process or configuration files is able to manipulate the RMI registry to perform a man-in-the-middle attack to capture user names and passwords used to access the JMX interface. The attacker can then use these credentials to access the JMX interface and gain complete control over the Tomcat instance.