Summary
Denial of service via HTTP/2 HEADERS frames padding
A program using swift-nio-http2 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack, caused by a network peer sending a specially crafted HTTP/2 frame. This attack affects all swift-nio-http2 versions from 1.0.0 to 1.19.2. It is fixed in 1.20.0 and later releases.
This vulnerability is caused by a logical error when parsing a HTTP/2 HEADERS or HTTP/2 PUSH_PROMISE frame where the frame contains padding information without any other data. This logical error caused confusion about the size of the frame, leading to a parsing error. This parsing error immediately crashes the entire process.
Sending a HEADERS frame or PUSH_PROMISE frame with HTTP/2 padding information does not require any special permission, so any HTTP/2 connection peer may send such a frame. For clients, this means any server to which they connect may launch this attack. For servers, anyone they allow to connect to them may launch such an attack.
The attack is low-effort: it takes very little resources to send an appropriately crafted frame. The impact on availability is high: receiving the frame immediately crashes the server, dropping all in-flight connections and causing the service to need to restart. It is straightforward for an attacker to repeatedly send appropriately crafted frames, so attackers require very few resources to achieve a substantial denial of service.
The attack does not have any confidentiality or integrity risks in and of itself: swift-nio-http2 is parsing the frame in memory-safe code, so the crash is safe. However, sudden process crashes can lead to violations of invariants in services, so it is possible that this attack can be used to trigger an error condition that has confidentiality or integrity risks.
The risk can be mitigated if untrusted peers can be prevented from communicating with the service. This mitigation is not available to many services.
The issue is fixed by rewriting the parsing code to correctly handle the condition. The issue was found by automated fuzzing by oss-fuzz.
Impact
CVE-2022-0618 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). The vector is network-reachable, no privileges required, and no user interaction. A CVSS score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether this affects your application depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable in your environment. A fixed version is available (1.20); upgrading removes the vulnerable code path.
Affected versions
Security releases
Kodem intelligence
Severity tells you how bad this could be in the worst case. It does not tell you whether you are exposed. Exploitability and impact are functions of runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A vulnerable package can sit in your dependency tree and never run.
Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter. Kodem's runtime-powered SCA identifies whether this CVE is reachable in your applications.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is CVE-2022-0618? CVE-2022-0618 is a high-severity security vulnerability in github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2 (swift), affecting versions >= 1.0.0, < 1.20. It is fixed in 1.20.
- How severe is CVE-2022-0618? CVE-2022-0618 has a CVSS score of 7.5 (High). This score reflects the worst-case severity of the vulnerability, not your specific exposure. Whether it represents real risk in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable.
- Which versions of github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2 are affected by CVE-2022-0618? github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2 (swift) versions >= 1.0.0, < 1.20 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2022-0618? Yes. CVE-2022-0618 is fixed in 1.20. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2022-0618 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-0618 is exploitable in your environment depends on whether the vulnerable code is present and reachable. A CVSS score is a worst-case rating; it does not account for your specific deployment, configuration, or usage patterns. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to show which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so you can focus on the ones that represent real risk. Get a demo
- What actually determines whether CVE-2022-0618 is exploitable, and how bad it is? Exploitability and impact are not fixed properties of a CVE. They depend on runtime truth: whether the vulnerable code is present, reachable, and actually executes in your application. A high CVSS score on a dependency that never runs is not the same as real risk. Kodem, an Intelligent Application Security platform, uses runtime intelligence to reveal which vulnerabilities actually execute in production, so teams prioritize the ones that genuinely matter.
- How do I fix CVE-2022-0618? Upgrade
github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2to 1.20 or later.