The Desync Delusion: Are You Really Protected Against HTTP Request Smuggling?
Summary: PortSwigger Research states that HTTP request smuggling has been a widely known issue since 2019, yet most DAST tools rely on pre-canned payloads aimed at simple CL.TE or TE.CL vectors or merely fingerprint specific CVEs. The article says Burp Suite DAST, developed with researcher James "albinowax" Kettle, instead probes desync primitives - parsing discrepancies between front-end and back-end servers - and that Kettle's 2025 Black Hat and DEF CON talks introduced new classes of desync attacks.
What you should know: If your scanner only checks known payloads and CVE signatures, the parsing discrepancies unique to your own proxy and cloud edge layers can stay undetected for years - which is the gap the article says attackers exploit.
Read the original at PortSwigger Research ↗
- Topics
- Vulnerabilities & Patching
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