CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2022-42916 — In curl before 7.86.0, the HSTS check could be bypassed to trick it into staying with HTTP

High CVSS 7.5

In curl before 7.86.0, the HSTS check could be bypassed to trick it into staying with HTTP. Using its HSTS support, curl can be instructed to use HTTPS directly (instead of using an insecure cleartext HTTP step) even when HTTP is provided in the URL. This mechanism could be bypassed if the host name in the given URL uses IDN characters that get replaced with ASCII counterparts as part of the IDN conversion, e.g., using the character UTF-8 U+3002 (IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP) instead of the common ASCII full stop of U+002E (.). The earliest affected version is 7.77.0 2021-05-26.

Severity
High
CVSS
7.5 (3.1)
Published
2022-10-29
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
software/application
Weaknesses
CWE-319

Affected products

  • haxx / curl
  • fedoraproject / fedora / 35
  • fedoraproject / fedora / 36
  • fedoraproject / fedora / 37
  • apple / macos
  • splunk / universal_forwarder

Showing 6 representative product identities from 9 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Cryptography, certificate, signature, and channel validation

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Inventory affected algorithms, key uses, trust stores, certificate validation settings, random sources, and plaintext channels across clients and services.
  • Determine which secrets, identities, signatures, or data protections depend on the affected primitive or validation path.
  • Check debug, compatibility, fallback, and hostname or audience override settings in build and runtime configuration.

Remediate safely

  • Use a maintained platform cryptographic API with approved algorithms, modes, parameters, randomness, and full peer identity validation.
  • Remove insecure fallback and validation bypasses; separate keys by purpose and load them from managed secret storage.
  • Plan rotation or reissuance for affected keys, certificates, tokens, hashes, or ciphertext and document compatibility sequencing.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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