Angular SSR is vulnerable to SSRF and Header Injection via request handling pipeline

A Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability has been identified in the Angular SSR request handling pipeline. The vulnerability exists because Angular’s internal URL reconstruction logic directly trusts and consumes user-controlled HTTP headers specifically the Host and X-Forwarded-* family to determine the application's base origin without any validation of the destination domain.

Specifically, the framework didn't have checks for the following:

• Host Domain: The Host and X-Forwarded-Host headers were not checked to belong to a trusted origin. This allows an attacker to redefine the "base" of the application to an arbitrary external domain.
• Path & Character Sanitization: The X-Forwarded-Host header was not checked for path segments or special characters, allowing manipulation of the base path for all resolved relative URLs.
• Port Validation: The X-Forwarded-Port header was not verified as numeric, leading to malformed URI construction or injection attacks.

This vulnerability manifests in two primary ways:

• Implicit Relative URL Resolution: Angular's HttpClient resolves relative URLs against this unvalidated and potentially malformed base origin. An attacker can "steer" these requests to an external server or internal service.
• Explicit Manual Construction: Developers injecting the REQUEST object to manually construct URLs (for fetch or third-party SDKs) directly inherit these unsanitized values. By accessing the Host / X-Forwarded-* headers, the application logic may perform requests to attacker-controlled destinations or malformed endpoints.

Impact

When successfully exploited, this vulnerability allows for arbitrary internal request steering. This can lead to:

• Credential Exfiltration: Stealing sensitive Authorization headers or session cookies by redirecting them to an attacker's server.
• Internal Network Probing: Accessing and transmitting data from internal services, databases, or cloud metadata endpoints (e.g., 169.254.169.254) not exposed to the public internet.
• Confidentiality Breach: Accessing sensitive information processed within the application's server-side context.

Attack Preconditions

• The victim application must use Angular SSR (Server-Side Rendering).
• The application must perform HttpClient requests using relative URLs OR manually construct URLs using the unvalidated Host / X-Forwarded-* headers using the REQUEST object.
• Direct Header Access: The application server is reachable by an attacker who can influence these headers without strict validation from a front-facing proxy.
• Lack of Upstream Validation: The infrastructure (Cloud, CDN, or Load Balancer) does not sanitize or validate incoming headers.

Patches

• 21.2.0-rc.1
• 21.1.5
• 20.3.17
• 19.2.21

Workarounds

• Use Absolute URLs: Avoid using req.headers for URL construction. Instead, use trusted variables for your base API paths.
• Implement Strict Header Validation (Middleware): If you cannot upgrade immediately, implement a middleware in your server.ts to enforce numeric ports and validated hostnames.

const ALLOWED_HOSTS = new Set(['your-domain.com']);

app.use((req, res, next) => {
  const hostHeader = (req.headers['x-forwarded-host'] ?? req.headers['host'])?.toString();
  const portHeader = req.headers['x-forwarded-port']?.toString();

  if (hostHeader) {
    const hostname = hostHeader.split(':')[0];
    // Reject if hostname contains path separators or is not in allowlist
    if (/^[a-z0-9.:-]+$/i.test(hostname) || 
       (!ALLOWED_HOSTS.has(hostname) && hostname !== 'localhost')) {
      return res.status(400).send('Invalid Hostname');
    }
  }

  // Ensure port is strictly numeric if provided
  if (portHeader && !/^\d+$/.test(portHeader)) {
    return res.status(400).send('Invalid Port');
  }

  next();
});

References

• Fix
• Docs