GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg is a medium-severity (CVSS 5.3) CWE-444 vulnerability in aiohttp. 1 public exploit reference exists, so weaponization risk is real. A fix is available for aiohttp — see the affected versions and patch details below.
AIOHTTP has problems in HTTP parser (the python one, not llhttp)
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
- CISA assesses this as automatable — exploitation doesn’t require manual, per-target effort, which raises the odds of mass scanning and opportunistic attacks.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
aiohttpReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Summary
The HTTP parser in AIOHTTP has numerous problems with header parsing, which could lead to request smuggling.
This parser is only used when AIOHTTP_NO_EXTENSIONS is enabled (or not using a prebuilt wheel).
Details
Bug 1: Bad parsing of Content-Length values
Description
RFC 9110 says this:
Content-Length = 1*DIGIT
AIOHTTP does not enforce this rule, presumably because of an incorrect usage of the builtin int constructor. Because the int constructor accepts + and - prefixes, and digit-separating underscores, using int to parse CL values leads AIOHTTP to significant misinterpretation.
Examples
GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
Content-Length: -0\r\n
\r\n
X
GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
Content-Length: +0_1\r\n
\r\n
X
Suggested action
Verify that a Content-Length value consists only of ASCII digits before parsing, as the standard requires.
Bug 2: Improper handling of NUL, CR, and LF in header values
Description
RFC 9110 says this:
Field values containing CR, LF, or NUL characters are invalid and dangerous, due to the varying ways that implementations might parse and interpret those characters; a recipient of CR, LF, or NUL within a field value MUST either reject the message or replace each of those characters with SP before further processing or forwarding of that message.
AIOHTTP's HTTP parser does not enforce this rule, and will happily process header values containing these three forbidden characters without replacing them with SP.
Examples
GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
Header: v\x00alue\r\n
\r\n
GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
Header: v\ralue\r\n
\r\n
GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
Header: v\nalue\r\n
\r\n
Suggested action
Reject all messages with NUL, CR, or LF in a header value. The translation to space thing, while technically allowed, does not seem like a good idea to me.
Bug 3: Improper stripping of whitespace before colon in HTTP headers
Description
RFC 9112 says this:
No whitespace is allowed between the field name and colon. In the past, differences in the handling of such whitespace have led to security vulnerabilities in request routing and response handling. A server MUST reject, with a response status code of 400 (Bad Request), any received request message that contains whitespace between a header field name and colon.
AIOHTTP does not enforce this rule, and will simply strip any whitespace before the colon in an HTTP header.
Example
GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n
Content-Length : 1\r\n
\r\n
X
Suggested action
Reject all messages with whitespace before a colon in a header field, as the standard requires.
PoC
Example requests are embedded in the previous section. To reproduce these bugs, start an AIOHTTP server without llhttp (i.e. AIOHTTP_NO_EXTENSIONS=1) and send the requests given in the previous section. (e.g. by printfing into nc)
Impact
Each of these bugs can be used for request smuggling.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | aiohttp | all versions | 3.8.6pip install --upgrade 'aiohttp==3.8.6' |
Research use only. For defensive security, authorized penetration testing, and academic research only. Never execute exploit code against systems without explicit written authorization.
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for aiohttp, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update aiohttp to 3.8.6 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg 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 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | python3x-aiohttp-0:3.9.1-1.el8ap | RHSA-2024:1057 |
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.4 for RHEL 8 | automation-controller-0:4.5.5-2.el8ap | RHSA-2024:1640 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.14 for RHEL 8 | python-aiohttp-0:3.9.2-0.1.el8pc | RHSA-2024:1536 |
| Red Hat Satellite 6.15 for RHEL 8 | python-aiohttp-0:3.9.2-1.el8pc | RHSA-2024:2010 |
| RHUI 4 for RHEL 8 | python-aiohttp-0:3.9.2-1.el8ui | RHSA-2024:1878 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg across PyPI dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.