BinaryHttpParser: Unauthenticated CPU-exhaustion DoS via infinite loop in field-section decoding

• ID: BHTTP-LOOP-001
• Severity: High
• CVSS v3.1: 7.5 — CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
• CWE: CWE-835 (Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition) — secondary CWE-400 (Uncontrolled Resource Consumption)
• Affected component: codec-bhttp → io.netty.incubator.codec.bhttp.BinaryHttpParser#readFieldSection, file codec-bhttp/src/main/java/io/netty/incubator/codec/bhttp/BinaryHttpParser.java:619-626
• Affected version: netty-incubator-codec-ohttp HEAD d3f2b49 (release 0.0.22.Final + 3 commits). The loop has existed since the parser was introduced and is present in the latest code; all published advisory fixes are already applied.
• Reachable from: io.netty.incubator.codec.ohttp.OHttpRequestResponseContext$ContentDecoder#decodeChunk (codec-ohttp/.../OHttpRequestResponseContext.java:214), i.e. the auto-wired OHTTP server and client codecs.
• Confidence: High (empirically reproduced hang + thread dump against the unmodified parser).

Summary

BinaryHttpParser decodes Binary HTTP (RFC 9292) messages. An OHTTP gateway/client built on this library feeds the decrypted OHTTP body straight into BinaryHttpParser.parse(...). The field-section decoding loop terminates only on the exact condition fieldSectionLength != 0 and relies on a Java assert to guarantee forward progress. Because (a) the loop counter can be driven negative and (b) readFieldLine(...) legitimately consumes zero bytes and returns null on a truncated/over-long field line, the loop can spin forever. Assertions are disabled in any normal production JVM, so the two assert statements meant to catch this provide no protection.

A single ~17-byte Binary HTTP message — encapsulated by an unauthenticated attacker inside a normal OHTTP request, using the gateway's public key configuration — pins one Netty event-loop thread at 100% CPU permanently. A handful of such requests exhausts the entire event-loop group and takes the OHTTP gateway (or client) fully offline.

Root cause

BinaryHttpParser.java:619-626:

HeaderType lastType = HeaderType.PSEUDO_HEADER;
while (fieldSectionLength != 0) {            // 619  — "!= 0", not "> 0"
    int readableBytes = in.readableBytes();
    lastType = readFieldLine(in, headers, lastType, trailers);
    assert lastType != null;                 // 622  — no-op without -ea
    int read = readableBytes - in.readableBytes();
    assert read > 0;                         // 624  — no-op without -ea
    fieldSectionLength -= read;              // 625
}

Two cooperating defects:

1. Counter can never hit zero. fieldSectionLength is the declared field-section byte length read from the wire (line 592). The loop subtracts the bytes each readFieldLine actually consumes. If a field line consumes more bytes than the (attacker-understated) declared length, fieldSectionLength goes negative and != 0 stays true forever.

2. Zero-progress iterations. readFieldLine (lines 654-707) returns null without consuming any bytes when the remaining buffer cannot hold a complete field line — at lines 656, 664, 670, and 681 (the in.skipBytes(sumBytes) that advances the reader is only reached on the success path, line 705). When it returns null, read == 0, fieldSectionLength is unchanged, and the loop re-enters with identical state — a tight busy spin.

The only constructs that would have stopped either case are the assert statements on lines 622 and 624, which the JVM strips unless started with -ea. Production deployments do not run with assertions enabled.

Reachability (hop-by-hop, every guard resolved)

Attacker model: OHTTP gateways publish their HPKE key configuration so that any client can encrypt requests to them. The attacker therefore encrypts a malicious BHTTP body under the gateway's public key — a perfectly valid OHTTP request. HPKE decapsulation succeeds; the plaintext is attacker-chosen.

1. OHttpServerCodec.decode → OHttpRequestResponseContext.parse → chunk decode → ContentDecoder.decodeChunk.
2. OHttpRequestResponseContext.java:211 decrypts the chunk into decryptedChunk; line 212 cumulates it; line 214 calls binaryHttpParser.parse(binaryHttpCumulation, completeBodyReceived) — attacker-controlled plaintext, no application code in between.
3. parse → READ_KNOWN_LENGTH_REQUEST_HEAD → readRequestHead (line 190).
4. readRequestHead reads the control data, then at lines 445-451 slices all remaining readable bytes as the field section and calls readFieldSection(..., knownLength=true, maxFieldSectionSize).
5. Inside readFieldSection:
   • Guard checkFieldSectionTooLarge(fieldSectionLength, max) (line 607): bounds only the declared length, which the PoC sets to 1. Passes — not a barrier.
   • Guard in.readableBytes() < sumBytes (line 609): sumBytes is built from the declared length, also tiny. Passes — not a barrier.
   • Guards assert (lines 622, 624): no-ops in production. Defeated by default.
   • Loop entered → spins forever (defects 1 + 2).

No reachable guard bounds the actual consumption or forces progress. maxFieldSectionSize is irrelevant because the declared length is small and the loop is CPU-bound on a fixed, small buffer (no allocation, no memory growth to trip any size cap).

Proof of concept (executed locally, benign liveness oracle)

The real codec-bhttp sources were compiled unmodified against netty 4.1.135.Final (the version pinned in pom.xml). The harness builds a valid known-length BHTTP request whose declared field-section length (0x01) is understated relative to the actual field line, then calls parse(in, true) on a worker thread with a 6-second watchdog. No payload, no side effects — purely a timing/CPU oracle.

Malicious message (17 bytes):

00 01 67 01 68 01 61 01 70 01 01 61 01 62 01 63 01
│  └method g └scheme h └auth a └path p │  └hdr a:b──┘ └ partial line
└ framing 0 (known-length request)     └ declared field-section length = 1

Observed (production default, assertions OFF):

[*] malicious BHTTP bytes (17): 0001670168016101700101610162016301
[!!] HANG CONFIRMED: parse() still running after 6000 ms
[!!] worker thread CPU time: 6029 ms (≈100% of one core => busy spin)
[!!] worker stack (top frames):
        at io.netty.incubator.codec.bhttp.BinaryHttpParser.readFieldSection(BinaryHttpParser.java:626)
        at io.netty.incubator.codec.bhttp.BinaryHttpParser.readRequestHead(BinaryHttpParser.java:451)
        at io.netty.incubator.codec.bhttp.BinaryHttpParser.parse(BinaryHttpParser.java:190)

CPU time ≈ wall time ⇒ a busy spin (RUNNABLE), not a blocked wait.

Controls: - Same input with -ea: parse() throws AssertionError at readFieldSection:624 immediately — proving the assertion is the only would-be guard and is absent in production. - Well-formed request (declared length matches): parse() returns DefaultBinaryHttpRequest promptly — proving the harness does not hang on valid input.

PoC sources: findings/netty-incubator-codec-ohttp/raw/Poc.java (hang + control 1) and raw/Poc2.java (negative control).

Impact

Unauthenticated, pre-business-logic remote denial of service. Each malicious request permanently consumes one Netty event-loop thread at 100% CPU. Netty event-loop groups have a small fixed thread count (default 2 × cores); a handful of requests exhausts every I/O thread, after which the gateway/client accepts no further connections and serves no traffic — a complete, persistent DoS that survives until process restart. Availability impact High; no confidentiality/integrity impact.

Adversarial re-reading (attempts to refute)

• "maxFieldSectionSize caps it." No — the declared length in the PoC is 1; the cap (line 607) checks the declared value only. The spin happens on a 17-byte buffer with no allocation. Refutation fails.
• "An upstream HTTP size limit / HttpObjectAggregator blocks it." No — the bug is CPU-bound, not memory-bound. The whole malicious message is tiny and well within any size limit. Refutation fails.
• "This is just CVE-2024-40642 (absent input validation)." No — that advisory was about missing validation of method/scheme/authority/path enabling injection; that fix (the ALLOWED_TOKEN/ALLOWED_SCHEME validators, lines 76-122/461-466) is present and unrelated. This is a control-flow/termination defect in field-section length accounting. Distinct class, distinct code.
• "The hang might be a harness artifact." No — the thread dump pinpoints readFieldSection:626; CPU≈wall confirms a spin; the -ea control throws at the exact assert; the well-formed control returns. The hang is for the claimed reason.
• "completeBodyReceived must be true." Not required — the loop is inside readFieldSection, reached via readRequestHead once the control data is present, independent of that flag. The flag only affects a branch taken after readRequestHead returns null, which never happens here.

No concrete blocker survived. Verdict: CONFIRMED.

Remediation

1. Change the loop exit condition to while (fieldSectionLength > 0) so an overshoot (negative counter) terminates.
2. Treat a null / zero-progress return from readFieldLine while fieldSectionLength > 0 as a hard framing error — throw CorruptedFrameException("truncated or over-long field line") instead of re-looping.
3. Reject any field line whose consumed byte count would drive fieldSectionLength below 0 (the declared length must be consumed exactly, per RFC 9292 §3.6).
4. Do not rely on assert for wire-format invariants on attacker-controlled input; assertions are disabled in production. Promote lines 622/624 to explicit exceptions.

Example:

while (fieldSectionLength > 0) {
    int readableBytes = in.readableBytes();
    lastType = readFieldLine(in, headers, lastType, trailers);
    int read = readableBytes - in.readableBytes();
    if (lastType == null || read <= 0) {
        throw new CorruptedFrameException("truncated or over-long field line");
    }
    if (read > fieldSectionLength) {
        throw new CorruptedFrameException("field line exceeds declared field-section length");
    }
    fieldSectionLength -= read;
}

Notes

• The indeterminate-length field-section path (framing indicators 2/3) shares the same loop and the same != 0 / zero-progress structure; the fix above should cover both. A dedicated trace of getIndeterminateLength (lines 538-566) under non-default maxFieldSectionSize is recorded separately as a lead.
• Default maxFieldSectionSize for the OHTTP codecs is 8 * 1024 (OHttpCodecBuilder.DEFAULT_MAX_FIELD_SECTION_SIZE), and is irrelevant to this CPU-bound spin.