ReDoS vulnerability in header parsing in hawk
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Network
- Privileges required
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- Denial of service
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · None · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 8 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · NVD. Fix status from CNA, GitHub and Red Hat. Impact type from CWE-400.
Summary
Hawk is an HTTP authentication scheme providing mechanisms for making authenticated HTTP requests with partial cryptographic verification of the request and response, covering the HTTP method, request URI, host, and optionally the request payload. Hawk used a regular expression to parse `Host` HTTP header (`Hawk.utils.parseHost()`), which was subject to regular expression DoS attack - meaning each added character in the attacker's input increases the computation time exponentially. `parseHost()` was patched in `9.0.1` to use built-in `URL` class to parse hostname instead. `Hawk.authenticate()` accepts `options` argument. If that contains `host` and `port`, those would be used instead of a call to `utils.parseHost()`.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mozilla | hawk | before 9.0.1 | 9.0.1 | Patch available | CNA |
| — | hawk (npm) | before 9.0.1 | 9.0.1 | Patch available | GHSA-44pw-h2cw-w3vq |
- hawk VendorMozilla Affected before 9.0.1 Fixed in 9.0.1 Patch available CNA
- hawk (npm) Vendor— Affected before 9.0.1 Fixed in 9.0.1 Patch available GHSA-44pw-h2cw-w3vq
Remediation
- Fix · CNA hawk (mozilla) Fixed in 9.0.1
- Fix · GHSA-44pw-h2cw-w3vq hawk (npm) Fixed in 9.0.1 Advisory →
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| .NET Core 5.0 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat Fuse 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
| Red Hat JBoss Data Grid 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Quay 3 | Affected | No fix planned: Will not fix |
Not affected: 3 products
- .NET Core 3.1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2022-29167
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-44pw-h2cw-w3vq
References
Sources
- CVE-2022-29167 · CVE Program
- CVE-2022-29167 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-44pw-h2cw-w3vq · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2022-29167 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences