Cyber Risks · PortSwigger Research

HTTP/3 connection contamination: an upcoming threat?

Summary: PortSwigger researcher James Kettle documented how first-request routing in reverse proxies, combined with browser HTTP connection coalescing, lets a request to one hostname be routed to another back-end on the same connection, so XSS on wordpress.example.com can be used to compromise secure.example.com. He notes the threat is currently rare because first-request routing is uncommon and HTTP/2 servers are a small pool, but HTTP/3 proposes removing the IP address match requirement, which would expose any front-end using first-request routing with a certificate valid for multiple hosts.

Why it matters: HTTP/3 would also mean a compromised server holding a wildcard certificate can attack sibling domains without an active man-in-the-middle, widening the pool of actors who could profit from it.

Read the original at PortSwigger Research ↗

Topics
Vulnerabilities & Patching
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