aws/ http-desync-guardian

Rust

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aws

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Apache License 2.0

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Description

Analyze HTTP requests to minimize risks of HTTP Desync attacks (precursor for HTTP request smuggling/splitting).

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Readme

Overview

Name: http-desync-guardian
Brand: http-desync-guardian
SKU: //aws/http-desync-guardian
Rating: 2.1775 (171 reviews)

HTTP/1.1

went through a long evolution since 1991 to 2014:

HTTP/0.9 – 1991
HTTP/1.0 – 1996
HTTP/1.1
- RFC 2068 – 1997
- RFC 2616 - 1999
- RFC 7230 - 2014

This means there is a variety of servers and clients, which might have different views on request boundaries, creating opportunities for desynchronization attacks (a.k.a. HTTP Desync).

It might seem simple to follow the latest RFC recommendations. However, for large scale systems that have been there for a while, it may come with unacceptable availability impact.

http_desync_guardian

library is designed to analyze HTTP requests to prevent HTTP Desync attacks, balancing security and availability. It classifies requests into different categories and provides recommendations on how each tier should be handled.

It can be used either for raw HTTP request headers or already parsed by an HTTP engine. Consumers may configure logging and metrics collection. Logging is rate limited and all user data is obfuscated.

If you think you might have found a security impacting issue, please follow our Security Notification Process.

Priorities

Uniformity across services is key. This means request classification, logging, and metrics must happen under the hood and with minimally available settings (e.g., such as log file destination).
Focus on reviewability. The test suite must require no knowledge about the library/programming languages but only about HTTP protocol. So it's easy to review, contribute, and re-use.
Security is efficient when it's easy for users. Our goal is to make integration of the library as simple as possible.
Ultralight. The overhead must be minimal and impose no tangible tax on request handling (see benchmarks).

Supported HTTP versions

The main focus of this library is

HTTP/1.1

. See tests for all covered cases. Predecessors of

HTTP/1.1

don't support connection re-use which limits opportunities for HTTP Desync, however some proxies may upgrade such requests to

HTTP/1.1

and re-use backend connections, which may allow to craft malicious

HTTP/1.0

requests. That's why they are analyzed using the same criteria as

HTTP/1.1

. For other protocol versions have the following exceptions:

```
HTTP/0.9
```
requests are never considered
```
Compliant
```
, but are classified as
```
Acceptable
```
. If any of
```
Content-Length
```
/
```
Transfer-Encoding
```
is present then it's
```
Ambiguous
```
.
```
HTTP/1.0
```
- the presence of
```
Transfer-Encoding
```
makes a request
```
Ambiguous
```
.
```
HTTP/2+
```
is out of scope. But if your proxy downgrades
```
HTTP/2
```
to
```
HTTP/1.1
```
, make sure the outgoing request is analyzed.

See documentation to learn more.

Usage from C

This library is designed to be primarily used from HTTP engines written in

C/C++

Install cbindgen:
```
cargo install --force cbindgen
```

Generate the header file:

Run

cbindgen --output http_desync_guardian.h --lang c

for C.

Run

cbindgen --output http_desync_guardian.h --lang c++

for C++.

Run

cargo build --release

. The binaries are in

./target/release/libhttp_desync_guardian.*

files.

Learn more: generic and Nginx examples.

#include "http_desync_guardian.h"

/* 

http_engine_request_t - already parsed by the HTTP engine 

/
static int check_request(http_engine_request_t *req) {
  http_desync_guardian_request_t guardian_request = construct_http_desync_guardian_from(req); 
  http_desync_guardian_verdict_t verdict = {0};
  http_desync_guardian_analyze_request(&guardian_request, &verdict);
  switch (verdict.tier) {
  case REQUEST_SAFETY_TIER_COMPLIANT:
      // The request is good. green light
      break;
  case REQUEST_SAFETY_TIER_ACCEPTABLE:
      // Reject, if mode == STRICTEST
      // Otherwise, OK
      break;
  case REQUEST_SAFETY_TIER_AMBIGUOUS:
      // The request is ambiguous.
      // Reject, if mode == STRICTEST 
      // Otherwise send it, but don't reuse both FE/BE connections.
      break;
  case REQUEST_SAFETY_TIER_SEVERE:
      // Send 400 and close the FE connection.
      break;
  default:
      // unreachable code
      abort();
  }
}

Usage from Rust

See benchmarks as an example of usage from Rust.

Security issue notifications

If you discover a potential security issue in

http_desync_guardian

we ask that you notify AWS Security via our vulnerability reporting page. Please do not create a public github issue.

Security

See CONTRIBUTING for more information.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License.