AsyncHttpClient: WebSocket proxy credentials sent to the origin server over a CONNECT tunnel

Impact

When a ws:// request is routed through an HTTP proxy with proxy authentication configured, the client tunnels the connection with an HTTP CONNECT, the same as it does for https://. Once the tunnel is open, the WebSocket upgrade request that follows is sent through the tunnel directly to the origin server, not to the proxy. The proxy-auth gate and the companion request-target selection keyed only on whether the URI was secured, which is false for ws://, so the tunnelled upgrade request incorrectly carried the proxy's Proxy-Authorization header and an absolute-form request target meant for the proxy. Any origin server reached over a proxied ws:// connection, or anyone positioned on the origin side of the wire, could recover the proxy credentials: directly for Basic, or as a replayable and offline-crackable response for Digest.

Affected versions

• 3.x: up to and including 3.0.11
• 2.x: up to and including 2.16.0

Patches

Fixed in 3.0.12 on the 3.x line and in 2.16.1 on the 2.x line. The preemptive Proxy-Authorization header and the absolute-form request target are no longer attached to a tunnelled ws:// upgrade; a ws:// request is now treated like wss://.

Workarounds

Do not use proxy authentication together with ws:// requests through an HTTP proxy, or use wss:// instead.

Details

The proxy-auth gate in NettyRequestFactory#newNettyRequest and the sibling branch in requestUri() did not exclude WebSocket URIs, even though the CONNECT-tunnelling check in NettyRequestSender already tunnels ws:// through CONNECT exactly like https://.

Note that 3.0.12 is itself affected by a separate issue, GHSA-rqf5-2wxv-rjf4, where a Digest challenge the client cannot read downgrades to Basic and sends the password in cleartext. Upgrade to 3.0.13 to pick up both fixes.