TYPO3-CORE-SA-2021-015: HTTP Host Header Injection in Request Handling

Categories: Development, Security Created by Oliver Hader
It has been discovered that TYPO3 CMS is vulnerable to HTTP header injection.

Problem Description

It has been discovered that TYPO3 CMS is susceptible to host spoofing due to improper validation of the HTTP Host header. TYPO3 uses the HTTP Host header, for example, to generate absolute URLs during the frontend rendering process. Since the host header itself is provided by the client, it can be forged to any value, even in a name-based virtual hosts environment.

This vulnerability is the same as described in TYPO3-CORE-SA-2014-001 (CVE-2014-3941). A regression, introduced during TYPO3 v11 development, led to this situation. The already existing setting $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['trustedHostsPattern'] (used as an effective mitigation strategy in previous TYPO3 versions) was not evaluated anymore, and reintroduced the vulnerability.

Solution

Update your instance to TYPO3 version 11.5.0 which addresses the problem described.

Credits

Thanks to TYPO3 framework merger Benjamin Franzke who reported and fixed the issue.

General Advice

Follow the recommendations that are given in the TYPO3 Security Guide. Please subscribe to the typo3-announce mailing list.

General Note

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