CVE-2021-28165

HIGH7.5EPSS 13.6%

Jetty vulnerable to incorrect handling of invalid large TLS frame, exhausting CPU resources

Published: 4/6/2021Modified: 3/13/2026
Also known as:GHSA-26vr-8j45-3r4wBIT-jenkins-2021-28165

Description

### Impact When using SSL/TLS with Jetty, either with HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, or WebSocket, the server may receive an invalid large (greater than 17408) TLS frame that is incorrectly handled, causing CPU resources to eventually reach 100% usage. ### Workarounds The problem can be worked around by compiling the following class: ```java package org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072; import java.nio.ByteBuffer; import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngine; import javax.net.ssl.SSLEngineResult; import javax.net.ssl.SSLException; import javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException; import org.eclipse.jetty.io.EndPoint; import org.eclipse.jetty.io.ssl.SslConnection; import org.eclipse.jetty.server.Connector; import org.eclipse.jetty.server.SslConnectionFactory; import org.eclipse.jetty.util.BufferUtil; import org.eclipse.jetty.util.annotation.Name; import org.eclipse.jetty.util.ssl.SslContextFactory; public class SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory extends SslConnectionFactory { public SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory(@Name("sslContextFactory") SslContextFactory factory, @Name("next") String nextProtocol) { super(factory, nextProtocol); } @Override protected SslConnection newSslConnection(Connector connector, EndPoint endPoint, SSLEngine engine) { return new SslConnection(connector.getByteBufferPool(), connector.getExecutor(), endPoint, engine, isDirectBuffersForEncryption(), isDirectBuffersForDecryption()) { @Override protected SSLEngineResult unwrap(SSLEngine sslEngine, ByteBuffer input, ByteBuffer output) throws SSLException { SSLEngineResult results = super.unwrap(sslEngine, input, output); if ((results.getStatus() == SSLEngineResult.Status.BUFFER_UNDERFLOW || results.getStatus() == SSLEngineResult.Status.OK && results.bytesConsumed() == 0 && results.bytesProduced() == 0) && BufferUtil.space(input) == 0) { BufferUtil.clear(input); throw new SSLHandshakeException("Encrypted buffer max length exceeded"); } return results; } }; } } ``` This class can be deployed by: + The resulting class file should be put into a jar file (eg sslfix6072.jar) + The jar file should be made available to the server. For a normal distribution this can be done by putting the file into ${jetty.base}/lib + Copy the file `${jetty.home}/modules/ssl.mod` to `${jetty.base}/modules` + Edit the `${jetty.base}/modules/ssl.mod` file to have the following section: ``` [lib] lib/sslfix6072.jar ``` + Copy the file `${jetty.home}/etc/jetty-https.xml` and`${jetty.home}/etc/jetty-http2.xml` to `${jetty.base}/etc` + Edit files `${jetty.base}/etc/jetty-https.xml` and `${jetty.base}/etc/jetty-http2.xml`, changing any reference of `org.eclipse.jetty.server.SslConnectionFactory` to `org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072.SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory`. For example: ```xml <Call name="addIfAbsentConnectionFactory"> <Arg> <New class="org.eclipse.jetty.server.ssl.fix6072.SpaceCheckingSslConnectionFactory"> <Arg name="next">http/1.1</Arg> <Arg name="sslContextFactory"><Ref refid="sslContextFactory"/></Arg> </New> </Arg> </Call> ``` + Restart Jetty

Affected packages (3)

CVSS scores

SourceVersionSeverityVector
osvCVSS 3.1HIGH7.5CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

References (210)