Debian Security Advisory

DLA-841-1 apache2 -- LTS security update

Date Reported:
28 Feb 2017
Affected Packages:
apache2
Vulnerable:
Yes
Security database references:
In Mitre's CVE dictionary: CVE-2016-8743.
More information:

This upload fixes a security vulnerability in the header parsing code.

David Dennerline, of IBM Security's X-Force Researchers, and Régis Leroy discovered problems in the way Apache handled a broad pattern of unusual whitespace patterns in HTTP requests. In some configurations, this could lead to response splitting or cache pollution vulnerabilities. To fix these issues, this update makes Apache httpd be more strict in what HTTP requests it accepts.

If this causes problems with non-conforming clients, some checks can be relaxed by adding the new directive HttpProtocolOptions unsafe to the configuration. More information is available at

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/mod/core.html#httpprotocoloptions

For Debian 7 Wheezy, these problems have been fixed in version 2.2.22-13+deb7u8.

We recommend that you upgrade your apache2 packages.

Further information about Debian LTS security advisories, how to apply these updates to your system and frequently asked questions can be found at: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS