GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74
HIGHGHSA-968f-66r5-5v74 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.1) CWE-444 vulnerability in waitress. O3 Security confirms whether GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
HTTP Request Smuggling in Waitress: Invalid whitespace characters in headers (Follow-up)
Blast Radius
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Description
Impact
The patches introduced to fix https://github.com/Pylons/waitress/security/advisories/GHSA-m5ff-3wj3-8ph4 were not complete and still would allow an attacker to smuggle requests/split a HTTP request with invalid data.
This updates the existing CVE with ID: CVE-2019-16789
Patches
Waitress version 1.4.2 has been updated to now validate HTTP headers better to avoid the issue, completely fixing all known issues with whitespace.
Workarounds
There are no work-arounds, upgrading to Waitress 1.4.2 is highly recommended.
References
See https://github.com/Pylons/waitress/security/advisories/GHSA-m5ff-3wj3-8ph4 for more information on the security issue.
For more information
If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
- open an issue at https://github.com/Pylons/waitress/issues (if not sensitive or security related)
- email the Pylons Security mailing list: [email protected] (if security related)
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | waitress | all versions | 1.4.2 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for waitress. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update waitress to 1.4.2 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74 in your dependencies?
O3 detects GHSA-968f-66r5-5v74 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.