CVE-2024-13009: Eclipse Jetty Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

CVE-2024-13009 Overview

CVE-2024-13009 is a resource management vulnerability affecting Eclipse Jetty versions 9.4.0 through 9.4.56. The flaw occurs when a buffer is incorrectly released during the handling of a gzip error while inflating a request body. This improper resource shutdown or release (CWE-404) can result in corrupted data or inadvertent sharing of data between concurrent requests, potentially exposing sensitive information across user sessions.

Critical Impact

This vulnerability enables data corruption and cross-request data leakage in affected Jetty instances, potentially exposing sensitive user data to unauthorized parties through improper buffer management.

Affected Products

• Eclipse Jetty versions 9.4.0 through 9.4.56
• Applications and services built on vulnerable Jetty versions
• Web servers and application containers using affected Jetty releases

Discovery Timeline

• 2025-05-08 - CVE-2024-13009 published to NVD
• 2025-07-31 - Last updated in NVD database

Technical Details for CVE-2024-13009

Vulnerability Analysis

This vulnerability stems from improper resource management in Eclipse Jetty's gzip decompression handling. When a gzip error occurs during request body inflation, the associated buffer is prematurely or incorrectly released back to the buffer pool. Because Jetty reuses buffers across requests for performance optimization, this improper release can cause the buffer—potentially still containing data from one request—to be assigned to another concurrent request.

The cross-request data contamination can manifest in two primary ways: corrupted request data where partial content from a previous request interferes with processing, or inadvertent information disclosure where sensitive data from one user's request becomes visible to another user's session. This is particularly concerning in multi-tenant environments or applications handling sensitive information.

Root Cause

The root cause is an improper resource shutdown or release condition (CWE-404) in Jetty's gzip inflation error handling path. When the GzipHandler encounters an error during decompression of request body data, the cleanup logic fails to properly manage the buffer state before returning it to the pool. The buffer may still contain partial or complete data from the previous request context, and this data can then be inadvertently exposed when the buffer is reassigned to handle a subsequent request.

Attack Vector

The attack vector is network-based, requiring no authentication or user interaction. An attacker can potentially trigger this vulnerability by sending malformed gzip-compressed request bodies designed to cause inflation errors. When the error handling code incorrectly releases the buffer, subsequent legitimate requests may receive data fragments from previous requests.

In practical exploitation scenarios, an attacker could repeatedly send malformed gzip requests to an affected server while monitoring responses to their own legitimate requests, potentially harvesting leaked data from other users' sessions. The scope is changed, meaning the vulnerability can affect resources beyond the vulnerable component itself.

The vulnerability manifests in the buffer release logic during gzip error handling. When a decompression error occurs, the buffer containing request data is returned to the pool without being properly cleared. A subsequent request may then receive this buffer, allowing access to data from the previous request context. For technical implementation details, see the GitHub Security Advisory.

Detection Methods for CVE-2024-13009

Indicators of Compromise

• Unexpected data appearing in HTTP responses that does not correspond to the current request
• Application logs showing gzip inflation errors followed by data integrity issues
• User reports of seeing other users' data or receiving corrupted responses
• Increased occurrence of HTTP 500 errors related to request body processing

Detection Strategies

• Monitor application logs for gzip decompression errors paired with data corruption warnings
• Implement request/response integrity checks to detect cross-request data contamination
• Deploy network monitoring to identify malformed gzip request patterns targeting your Jetty instances
• Use SentinelOne Singularity to detect anomalous application behavior patterns indicative of buffer manipulation

Monitoring Recommendations

• Enable verbose logging for Jetty's GzipHandler to capture decompression failures
• Implement application-level data integrity validation for sensitive request/response payloads
• Monitor for unusual patterns of gzip errors that could indicate exploitation attempts
• Set up alerts for data leakage indicators such as cross-session data contamination reports

How to Mitigate CVE-2024-13009

Immediate Actions Required

• Upgrade Eclipse Jetty to version 9.4.57 or later, or migrate to Jetty 10.x/11.x/12.x branches
• Review application logs for any evidence of prior exploitation or data leakage
• Assess whether sensitive data may have been exposed and follow incident response procedures if warranted
• Consider temporarily disabling gzip request body inflation as a workaround until patching is complete

Patch Information

Eclipse has addressed this vulnerability in Jetty versions subsequent to 9.4.56. Organizations should upgrade to Jetty 9.4.57 or later to remediate this issue. For applications that can migrate to newer major versions, Jetty 10.x, 11.x, and 12.x are not affected by this specific vulnerability.

Detailed patch information and remediation guidance is available in the GitHub Security Advisory. Additional context can be found in the Eclipse GitLab CVE Issue.

Workarounds

• Disable gzip content encoding for request bodies by removing the GzipHandler from the handler chain
• Implement a reverse proxy that handles gzip decompression before requests reach Jetty
• Add request validation at the application layer to detect and reject corrupted request data
• Deploy network-level filtering to block malformed gzip content from reaching vulnerable servers

# Example: Disable gzip request handling in Jetty configuration
# In jetty.xml, comment out or remove the GzipHandler configuration
# Or configure to only handle response compression, not request inflation

# Alternative: Configure upstream proxy to handle decompression
# nginx example:
# gunzip on;
# proxy_set_header Accept-Encoding "";