Medium

lambdaisland/uri `authority-regex` returns the wrong authority

  • Disclosed: 27.03.2023
  • Updated: 11.10.2026 11:21

Summary

authority-regex allows an attacker to send malicious URLs to be parsed by the lambdaisland/uri and return the wrong authority. This issue is similar to CVE-2020-8910.

Details

https://github.com/lambdaisland/uri/blob/d3355fcd3e235238f4dcd37be97787a84e580072/src/lambdaisland/uri.cljc#L9

This regex doesn't handle the backslash (\) character in the username correctly, leading to a wrong output. Payload: https://example.com\\@google.com The returned host is google.com, but the correct host should be example.com.

urllib3 (Python) and google-closure-library (Javascript) return example.com as the host. Here the correct (or current) regex used by google-closure-library:

https://github.com/google/closure-library/blob/0e567abedb058e9b194a40cfa3ad4c507653bccf/closure/goog/uri/utils.js#L189

PoC

(ns poc.core)
(require '[lambdaisland.uri :refer (uri)])

(def myurl "https://example.com\\@google.com")

(defn -main
  []
   (println myurl)
   (println (:host (uri myurl)))
)

Impact

The library returns the wrong authority, and it can be abused to bypass host restrictions.

Reference

WHATWG Living URL spec, section 4.4 URL Parsing, host state: https://url.spec.whatwg.org/#url-parsing

Affected software

Click a technology to see all vulnerabilities affecting it.

PlatformPackageVulnerable versionsFixed in
Java / Kotlin (Maven) lambdaisland:uri < 1.14.120 1.14.120

References

CVSS score 6.5/10
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
Weakness (CWE)
CWE-601, CWE-706
Platform
Java / Kotlin (Maven)
Package
lambdaisland:uri
Disclosed
27.03.2023
Updated
11.10.2026 11:21

Sources and licenses

OSV / GitHub Advisory Database - GHSA-cp4w-6x4w-v2h5 - CC BY 4.0

Vulnerability history: lambdaisland:uri

All published vulnerabilities of this package (Java / Kotlin (Maven)), newest first. Shows whether this is a one-off slip or a package that needs watching.

This is the only known vulnerability of this package.

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