Description
Kayran has detected that the Version of Apache HTTP Server being used is vulnerable to NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476). Also known as CVE-2021-31618.
A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid. But instead, is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit.
HTTP Server protocol handler for the HTTP/2 protocol checks received request headers against the size limitations as configured for the server and used for the HTTP/1 protocol as well.
When violation of these restrictions and HTTP response is sent to the client with a status code indicating why the request was rejected.
This rejection response was not fully initialized in the HTTP/2 protocol handler if the offending header was the very first one received or appeared in a a footer. This led to a NULL pointer dereference on initialized memory, crashing reliably the child process.
Since such a triggering the request is easy to craft and submit, this can be exploited to DoS (Denial of Service) the server.
This will cause a decrease in performance and also for interruptions in the availability of resources.
Recommendation
To fix CVE-2021-31618, upgrade the version of Apache HTTP Server being used to 2.4.48.
References
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2021-31618
