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No exploitation reportedFix available

CVE-2020-26281

No exploitation reported by the sources we read.

  • Published2020-12-21
  • Fixed in2.3.0
  • WeaknessCWE-444

Am I affected?

With a domain, we read the version its public headers and pages expose. A distribution build can carry the fix under an older number.

Description

async-h1 is an asynchronous HTTP/1.1 parser for Rust (crates.io). There is a request smuggling vulnerability in async-h1 before version 2.3.0. This vulnerability affects any webserver that uses async-h1 behind a reverse proxy, including all such Tide applications. If the server does not read the body of a request which is longer than some buffer length, async-h1 will attempt to read a subsequent request from the body content starting at that offset into the body. One way to exploit this vulnerability would be for an adversary to craft a request such that the body contains a request that would not be noticed by a reverse proxy, allowing it to forge forwarded/x-forwarded headers. If an application trusted the authenticity of these headers, it could be misled by the smuggled request. Another potential concern with this vulnerability is that if a reverse proxy is sending multiple http clients' requests along the same keep-alive connection, it would be possible for the smuggled request to specify a long content and capture another user's request in its body. This content could be captured in a post request to an endpoint that allows the content to be subsequently retrieved by the adversary. This has been addressed in async-h1 2.3.0 and previous versions have been yanked.

Timeline

dates in UTC
  1. 2020-12-2122:15CVE publishedNVD

Observed activity

isMalicious corpus · updated 2026-10-23 21:37 UTC
Indicators tagged with this CVE, per day0 indicators over 7 days
Block these indicators
  • Firewall list (EDL, text): https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-26281?format=txt
  • CSV export: https://api.ismalicious.com/edl/cve/CVE-2020-26281?format=csv
  • TAXII collection of exploited CVEs
  • The EDL and CSV take an API key on the Pro plan.

Versions per branch

NVD · OSV
Rust-lang async-h1
BranchAffectedFixed in
2.3< 2.3.02.3.0
2.3≥ 0.0.0-0, < 2.3.02.3.0

as publishedRanges as NVD and OSV publish them; a distribution’s build can be fixed under an older number.

Fix

  1. Update Rust-lang async-h1 to 2.3.0

Advisories and patches

Detection

Nuclei template
none so far
ProjectDiscovery
Exploit-DB
no entry
Exploit-DB
Proof-of-concept repositories
none listed
PoC-in-GitHub

Sources

  • CNACVSS 3.16.8read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 3.17.5read 2026-10-23
  • NVDCVSS 2.05.8read 2026-10-23
  • CNAweakness (CWE)CWE-444read 2026-10-23
  • FIRST EPSSEPSS score1.0 %2026-10-23
  • OSVaffected packages—

Technical details

CVSS v3 Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N
Published
2020-12-21
Last Modified
2026-06-17
NVD status
Modified

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-26281?

async-h1 is an asynchronous HTTP/1.1 parser for Rust (crates.io). There is a request smuggling vulnerability in async-h1 before version 2.3.0. This vulnerability affects any webserver that uses async-h1 behind a reverse proxy, including all such Tide applications. If the server does not read the body of a request which is longer than some buffer length, async-h1 will attempt to read a subsequent request from the body content starting at that offset into the body. One way to exploit this vulnerability would be for an adversary to craft a request such that the body contains a request that would not be noticed by a reverse proxy, allowing it to forge forwarded/x-forwarded headers. If an application trusted the authenticity of these headers, it could be misled by the smuggled request. Another potential concern with this vulnerability is that if a reverse proxy is sending multiple http clients' requests along the same keep-alive connection, it would be possible for the smuggled request to specify a long content and capture another user's request in its body. This content could be captured in a post request to an endpoint that allows the content to be subsequently retrieved by the adversary. This has been addressed in async-h1 2.3.0 and previous versions have been yanked.

Is CVE-2020-26281 actively exploited?

Active exploitation of CVE-2020-26281 has not been confirmed. Its EPSS score was 1.0% on 2026-10-23, the estimated probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2020-26281?

CVE-2020-26281 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.5 (HIGH severity), with vector string CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:H/A:N.

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