CURL-CVE-2021-22898

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    CURL-CVE-2021-22898

    Published: 26 May 2021Last Modified: 27 May 2026

    Summary: TELNET stack contents disclosure

    Details: curl supports the `-t` command line option, known as `CURLOPT_TELNETOPTIONS` in libcurl. This rarely used option is used to send variable=content pairs to TELNET servers. Due to flaw in the option parser for sending `NEW_ENV` variables, libcurl could be made to pass on uninitialized data from a stack based buffer to the server. Therefore potentially revealing sensitive internal information to the server using a clear-text network protocol. This could happen because curl did not check the return code from a `sscanf(command, "%127[^,],%127s")` function invoke correctly, and would leave the piece of the send buffer uninitialized for the value part if it was provided longer than 127 bytes. The buffer used for this is 2048 bytes big and the *variable* part of the *variable=content* pairs would be stored correctly in the send buffer, making curl sending "interleaved" bytes sequences of stack contents. A single curl TELNET handshake could then be made to send off a total of around 1800 bytes of (non-contiguous) stack contents in this style: [control byte]name[control byte] stack contents [control byte]name[control byte] stack contents ... An easy proof of concept command line looks like this: curl telnet://example.com -tNEW_ENV=a,bbbbbb (256 'b's)

    References:

    Affected packages

    Package

    Name:

    Purl:

    Affected ranges

    Type: SEMVER

    Events:

    Introduced- 7.7
    Fixed -7.77.0

    Affected versions

    7.76.1
    7.76.0

    Common Vulnerability Scoring System

    Attack Vector
    Network
    Adjacent
    Local
    Physical
    Privileges Required
    None
    Low
    High
    User Interaction
    None
    Required
    Scope
    Unchanged
    Changed
    Confidentiality
    None
    Low
    High
    Integrity
    None
    Low
    High
    Availability
    None
    Low
    High
    CURL-CVE-2021-22898 | CVE-DB