CVE-2023-23914

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

cURL is a computer software project providing a library (libcurl) and command-line tool (curl) for transferring data using various protocols.

Security Fix(es):

A flaw was found in the Curl package, where the HSTS mechanism could fail when multiple transfers are done in parallel, as the HSTS cache file gets overwritten by the most recently completed transfer. This issue may result in limited confidentiality and integrity.(CVE-2023-23915)

A flaw was found in the Curl package, where the HSTS mechanism would be ignored by subsequent transfers when done on the same command line because the state would not be properly carried. This issue may result in limited confidentiality and integrity.(CVE-2023-23914)

curl supports "chained" HTTP compression algorithms, meaning that a server response can be compressed multiple times and potentially with different algorithms. The number of acceptable "links" in this "decompression chain" was capped, but the cap was implemented on a per-header basis allowing a malicious server to insert a virtually unlimited number of compression steps simply by using many headers. The use of such a decompression chain could result in a "malloc bomb", making curl end up spending enormous amounts of allocated heap memory, or trying to and returning out of memory errors.(CVE-2023-23916)

cURL is a computer software project providing a library (libcurl) and command-line tool (curl) for transferring data using various protocols.

Security Fix(es):

A flaw was found in the Curl package, where the HSTS mechanism could fail when multiple transfers are done in parallel, as the HSTS cache file gets overwritten by the most recently completed transfer. This issue may result in limited confidentiality and integrity.(CVE-2023-23915)

A flaw was found in the Curl package, where the HSTS mechanism would be ignored by subsequent transfers when done on the same command line because the state would not be properly carried. This issue may result in limited confidentiality and integrity.(CVE-2023-23914)

curl supports "chained" HTTP compression algorithms, meaning that a server response can be compressed multiple times and potentially with different algorithms. The number of acceptable "links" in this "decompression chain" was capped, but the cap was implemented on a per-header basis allowing a malicious server to insert a virtually unlimited number of compression steps simply by using many headers. The use of such a decompression chain could result in a "malloc bomb", making curl end up spending enormous amounts of allocated heap memory, or trying to and returning out of memory errors.(CVE-2023-23916)

Root has patched CVE-2023-23914 in the curl package for Root:Debian:11. Multiple fixed versions available.

A cleartext transmission of sensitive information vulnerability exists in curl <v7.88.0 that could cause HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of usingan insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. ThisHSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transferswhen done on the same command line because the state would not be properlycarried on.

curl's HSTS functionality fail when multiple URLs are requested serially.

Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS instead of using an insecure clear-text HTTP step even when HTTP is provided in the URL. This HSTS mechanism would however surprisingly be ignored by subsequent transfers when done on the same command line because the state would not be properly carried on.

Reproducible like this:

curl --hsts "" https://curl.se http://curl.se

The first URL returns HSTS information that the second URL fails to take advantage of.

These are all security issues fixed in the curl-7.88.1-1.1 package on the GA media of openSUSE Tumbleweed.

This update for curl fixes the following issues:

• CVE-2023-23914: Fixed HSTS ignored on multiple requests (bsc#1207990).
• CVE-2023-23915: Fixed HSTS amnesia with --parallel (bsc#1207991).
• CVE-2023-23916: Fixed HTTP multi-header compression denial of service (bsc#1207992).

Harry Sintonen discovered that curl incorrectly handled HSTS support when multiple URLs are requested serially. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause curl to use unencrypted connections. This issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.10. (CVE-2023-23914)

Harry Sintonen discovered that curl incorrectly handled HSTS support when multiple URLs are requested in parallel. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause curl to use unencrypted connections. This issue only affected Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 22.10. (CVE-2023-23915)

Patrick Monnerat discovered that curl incorrectly handled memory when processing requests with multi-header compression. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause curl to consume resources, leading to a denial of service. (CVE-2023-23916)