Medium

Jetty accepts "+" prefixed value in Content-Length

Disclosed: 14.09.2023
Updated: 11.10.2026 13:20

Impact

Jetty accepts the '+' character proceeding the content-length value in a HTTP/1 header field. This is more permissive than allowed by the RFC and other servers routinely reject such requests with 400 responses. There is no known exploit scenario, but it is conceivable that request smuggling could result if jetty is used in combination with a server that does not close the connection after sending such a 400 response.

Workarounds

There is no workaround as there is no known exploit scenario.

Original Report

RFC 9110 Secion 8.6 defined the value of Content-Length header should be a string of 0-9 digits. However we found that Jetty accepts "+" prefixed Content-Length, which could lead to potential HTTP request smuggling.

Payload:

 POST / HTTP/1.1
 Host: a.com
 Content-Length: +16
 Connection: close
 
 0123456789abcdef

When sending this payload to Jetty, it can successfully parse and identify the length.

When sending this payload to NGINX, Apache HTTPd or other HTTP servers/parsers, they will return 400 bad request.

This behavior can lead to HTTP request smuggling and can be leveraged to bypass WAF or IDS.

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

Platform	Package	Vulnerable versions	Fixed in
Java / Kotlin (Maven)	org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-http	>= 9.0.0, < 9.4.52, >= 10.0.0, < 10.0.16, >= 11.0.0, < 11.0.16, >= 12.0.0, < 12.0.1	9.4.52, 10.0.16, 11.0.16, 12.0.1

References

CVSS score 5.3/10

CVSS vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:N
Weakness (CWE): CWE-130
Platform: Java / Kotlin (Maven)
Package: org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-http
Disclosed: 14.09.2023
Updated: 11.10.2026 13:20

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-hmr7-m48g-48f6 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-http

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

Total entries: 5
First → latest: 07.2022 04.2026
Without a fix: 0
Exploited in attacks: 0

Severity breakdown

High 1
Medium 2
Low 2

Disclosures per year

2022: 1
2023: 1
2024: 1
2025: 0
2026: 2

14.04.2026

Jetty has HTTP Request Smuggling via Chunked Extension Quoted-String Parsing

High · 7.4 CVE-2026-2332 >= 12.1.0, < 12.1.7, >= 12.0.0, < 12.0.33, >= 11.0.0, < 11.0.29, >= 10.0.0, < 10.0.28, >= 9.4.0, < 9.4.60 12.1.7, 12.0.33, 11.0.29, 10.0.28, 9.4.60
05.03.2026

org.eclipse.jetty:jetty-http has different parsing of invalid URIs

Low · 3.7 CVE-2025-11143 >= 9.4.0, <= 9.4.58, >= 10.0.0, <= 10.0.26, >= 11.0.0, <= 11.0.26, >= 12.0.0, < 12.0.31, >= 12.1.0, < 12.1.5 12.0.31, 12.1.5
14.10.2024

Eclipse Jetty URI parsing of invalid authority

Medium · 3.7 CVE-2024-6763 >= 7.0.0, < 12.0.12 12.0.12
14.09.2023

Jetty accepts "+" prefixed value in Content-Length this entry

Medium · 5.3 CVE-2023-40167 >= 9.0.0, < 9.4.52, >= 10.0.0, < 10.0.16, >= 11.0.0, < 11.0.16, >= 12.0.0, < 12.0.1 9.4.52, 10.0.16, 11.0.16, 12.0.1
07.07.2022

Jetty invalid URI parsing may produce invalid HttpURI.authority

Low · 2.7 CVE-2022-2047 < 9.4.47, >= 10.0.0, < 10.0.10, >= 11.0.0, < 11.0.10 9.4.47, 10.0.10, 11.0.10

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