Summary
swift-nio-http2 vulnerable to denial of service via ALTSVC or ORIGIN frames
A program using swift-nio-http2 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack caused by a network peer sending ALTSVC or ORIGIN frames. This attack affects all swift-nio-http2 versions from 1.0.0 to 1.19.1. It is fixed in 1.19.2 and later releases.
This vulnerability is caused by a logical error after frame parsing but before frame handling. ORIGIN and ALTSVC frames are not currently supported by swift-nio-http2, and should be ignored. However, one code path that encounters them has a deliberate trap instead. This was left behind from the original development process and was never removed.
Sending an ALTSVC or ORIGIN frame 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 one of these frames. 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 these 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. This is a controlled, intentional crash. 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-2022-24668 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 (1.19.2); 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-2022-24668? CVE-2022-24668 is a high-severity security vulnerability in github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2 (swift), affecting versions >= 1.0.0, < 1.19.2. It is fixed in 1.19.2.
- How severe is CVE-2022-24668? CVE-2022-24668 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-2022-24668? github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2 (swift) versions >= 1.0.0, < 1.19.2 is affected.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2022-24668? Yes. CVE-2022-24668 is fixed in 1.19.2. Upgrade to this version or later.
- Is CVE-2022-24668 exploitable, and should I be worried? Whether CVE-2022-24668 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-2022-24668 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-2022-24668? Upgrade
github.com/apple/swift-nio-http2to 1.19.2 or later.