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GHSA-mp2g-9vg9-f4cg CVE-2026-23527

h3 v1 has Request Smuggling (TE.TE) issue

Critical npm
Severity
8.9 / 10
Critical · CVSS 3.1
Exploit chance (EPSS)
0.63%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days. Higher than 50.02% of scored vulnerabilities.
Known exploited
No
Not in CISA's catalog
Weakness
CWE-444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
Fix
1.15.5
Upgrade h3 to this version or later

Description

I was digging into h3 v1 (specifically v1.15.4) and found a critical HTTP Request Smuggling vulnerability.

Basically, readRawBody is doing a strict case-sensitive check for the Transfer-Encoding header. It explicitly looks for "chunked", but per the RFC, this header should be case-insensitive.

The Bug: If I send a request with Transfer-Encoding: ChuNked (mixed case), h3 misses it. Since it doesn't see "chunked" and there's no Content-Length, it assumes the body is empty and processes the request immediately.

This leaves the actual body sitting on the socket, which triggers a classic TE.TE Desync (Request Smuggling) if the app is running behind a Layer 4 proxy or anything that doesn't normalize headers (like AWS NLB or Node proxies).

Vulnerable Code (src/utils/body.ts):

if (
    !Number.parseInt(event.node.req.headers["content-length"] || "") &&
    !String(event.node.req.headers["transfer-encoding"] ?? "")
      .split(",")
      .map((e) => e.trim())
      .filter(Boolean)
      .includes("chunked") // <--- This is the issue. "ChuNkEd" returns false here.
  ) {
    return Promise.resolve(undefined);
  }

I verified this locally:

  • Sent a Transfer-Encoding: ChunKed request without a closing 0 chunk.
  • Express hangs (correctly waiting for data).
  • h3 responds immediately (vulnerable, thinks body is length 0).

Impact: Since H3/Nuxt/Nitro is often used in containerized setups behind TCP load balancers, an attacker can use this to smuggle requests past WAFs or desynchronize the socket to poison other users' connections.

Fix: Just need to normalize the header value before checking: .map((e) => e.trim().toLowerCase())

Affected versions

npm

PackageVulnerableFixed in
h3
<= 1.15.4
No fix yet
h3
< 1.15.5
1.15.5

How to fix

Move to the fixed version or later with your package manager, update the lockfile, and run your tests. If the package only arrives through another dependency, upgrade that dependency first. If none of its releases pulls a fixed version yet, force the version with your package manager's override.

h3 npm → 1.15.5

npm
npm install h3@1.15.5
yarn
yarn add h3@1.15.5
pnpm
pnpm add h3@1.15.5

Severity breakdown

CVSS 3.1 8.9

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:L

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
Low

Weakness

CWE-444: Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')

The product acts as an intermediary HTTP agent (such as a proxy or firewall) in the data flow between two entities such as a client and server, but it does not interpret malformed HTTP requests or responses in ways that are consistent with how the messages will be processed by those entities that are at the ultimate destination.

How to prevent it
  • Implementation: Use a web server that employs a strict HTTP parsing procedure, such as Apache [REF-433].
  • Implementation: Use only SSL communication.
  • Implementation: Terminate the client session after each request.
  • System Configuration: Turn all pages to non-cacheable.

References

Timeline

  1. Published
  2. Last updated by the source
  3. Latest EPSS score
AdvisorySeverityWhy it's related
GHSA-fp4x-ggrf-wmc6
H3 has an Open Redirect via Protocol-Relative Path in redirectBack() Referer Validation
Medium Also affects h3
GHSA-q5pr-72pq-83v3
H3: Unbounded Chunked Cookie Count in Session Cleanup Loop may Lead to Denial of Service
High Also affects h3
GHSA-4hxc-9384-m385
h3: SSE Event Injection via Unsanitized Carriage Return (`\r`) in EventStream Data and Comment Fields (Bypass of CVE Fix)
Medium Also affects h3
GHSA-2j6q-whv2-gh6w
h3: Missing Path Segment Boundary Check in `mount()` Causes Middleware Execution on Unrelated Prefix-Matching Routes
Medium Also affects h3
GHSA-72gr-qfp7-vwhw
h3: Double Decoding in `serveStatic` Bypasses `resolveDotSegments` Path Traversal Protection via `%252e%252e`
High Also affects h3
GHSA-wr4h-v87w-p3r7
h3 has a Path Traversal via Percent-Encoded Dot Segments in serveStatic Allows Arbitrary File Read
High Also affects h3
GHSA-3vj8-jmxq-cgj5
h3 has a middleware bypass with one gadget
Critical Also affects h3
GHSA-26f5-8h2x-34xh
h3 has an observable timing discrepancy in basic auth utils
Medium Also affects h3

Credits: simonkoeck

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