CVE-2021-43848

Unititialized memory access in h2o

MEDIUM
5.9
CVSS Score
Published: February 1, 2022 at 12:13 PM UTC
Updated: June 17, 2026 at 04:11 AM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsH2OH2O

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Severity
MEDIUM5.9
Exploit prediction
EPSS 3%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

h2o is an open source http server. In code prior to the `8c0eca3` commit h2o may attempt to access uninitialized memory. When receiving QUIC frames in certain order, HTTP/3 server-side implementation of h2o can be misguided to treat uninitialized memory as HTTP/3 frames that have been received. When h2o is used as a reverse proxy, an attacker can abuse this vulnerability to send internal state of h2o to backend servers controlled by the attacker or third party. Also, if there is an HTTP endpoint that reflects the traffic sent from the client, an attacker can use that reflector to obtain internal state of h2o. This internal state includes traffic of other connections in unencrypted form and TLS session tickets. This vulnerability exists in h2o server with HTTP/3 support, between commit 93af138 and d1f0f65. None of the released versions of h2o are affected by this vulnerability. There are no known workarounds. Users of unreleased versions of h2o using HTTP/3 are advised to upgrade immediately.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

v < 2021-12-20
Affected range stops below 2021-12-20, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
v < 8c0eca3
Affected range stops below 8c0eca3, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet. What the record does show:

Patch and advisory references

References (2)

x_refsource_MISCPatchThird Party Advisory
https://github.com/h2o/h2o/commit/8c0eca3

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatablePartial impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

Attack Vector
NETWORK
Complexity
HIGH
Privileges
NONE
User Interaction
NONE
Scope
UNCHANGED
Confidentiality
HIGH
Integrity
NONE
Availability
NONE
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-908

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