Various suggest on-list and off-list fixes applied. Thanks all. A few more +1's would be nice :)
Dw. Title: CVE-2011-3192: Range header DoS vulnerability Apache HTTPD 1.3/2.x Apache HTTPD Security ADVISORY Date: 20110824 1600Z Product: Apache HTTPD Web Server Versions: Apache 1.3 all versions, Apache 2 all versions Description: ------------ A denial of service vulnerability has been found in the way the multiple overlapping ranges are handled by the Apache HTTPD server: http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2011/Aug/175 An attack tool is circulating in the wild. Active use of this tools has been observed. The attack can be done remotely and with a modest number of requests can cause very significant memory and CPU usage on the server. The default Apache HTTPD installation is vulnerable. There is currently no patch/new version of Apache HTTPD which fixes this vulnerability. This advisory will be updated when a long term fix is available. A full fix is expected in the next 48 hours. Mitigation: ------------ However there are several immediate options to mitigate this issue until that time. 1) Use mod_rewrite to limit the number of ranges: Option 1: # drop Range header when more than 5 ranges. # CVE-2011-3192 SetEnvIf Range (,.*?){5,} bad-range=1 RequestHeader unset Range env=bad-range # optional logging. CustomLog logs/range-CVE-2011-3192.log common env=bad-range Option 2: # Reject request when more than 5 ranges in the Range: header. # CVE-2011-3192 # RewriteCond %{HTTP:range} !(^bytes=[^,]+(,[^,]+){0,4}$|^$) RewriteRule .* - [F] The number 5 is arbitrary. Several 10's should not be an issue and may be required for sites which for example serve PDFs to very high end eReaders or use things such complex http based video streaming. 2) Limit the size of the request field to a few hundred bytes. Note that while this keeps the offending Range header short - it may break other headers; such as sizeable cookies or security fields. LimitRequestFieldSize 200 Note that as the attack evolves in the field you are likely to have to further limit this and/or impose other LimitRequestFields limits. See: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#limitrequestfieldsize 3) Use mod_headers to completely dis-allow the use of Range headers: RequestHeader unset Range Note that this may break certain clients - such as those used for e-Readers and progressive/http-streaming video. 4) Deploy a Range header count module as a temporary stopgap measure: http://people.apache.org/~dirkx/mod_rangecnt.c Precompiled binaries for some platforms are available at: http://people.apache.org/~dirkx/BINARIES.txt 5) Apply any of the current patches under discussion - such as: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/httpd-dev/201108.mbox/%3ccaapsnn2po-d-c4nqt_tes2rrwizr7urefhtkpwbc1b+k1dq...@mail.gmail.com%3e Actions: ----------- Apache HTTPD users who are concerned about a DoS attack against their server should consider implementing any of the above mitigations immediately. When using a third party attack tool to verify vulnerability - know that most of the versions in the wild currently check for the presence of mod_deflate; and will (mis)report that your server is not vulnerable if this module is not present. This vulnerability is not dependent on presence or absence of that module. Planning: ------------- This advisory will be updated when new information, a patch or a new release is available. A patch or new apache release for Apache 2.0 and 2.2 is expected in the next 48 hours. Note that, while popular, Apache 1.3 is deprecated.