CVE-2019-16786

CVE-2019-16786 is a high-severity vulnerability in Agendaless Waitress with a CVSS 3.x base score of 7.1. It is not currently listed as actively exploited by CISA, and its EPSS exploit-prediction score is low. The underlying weakness is classified as CWE-444.

Key facts

Description

Waitress through version 1.3.1 would parse the Transfer-Encoding header and only look for a single string value, if that value was not chunked it would fall through and use the Content-Length header instead. According to the HTTP standard Transfer-Encoding should be a comma separated list, with the inner-most encoding first, followed by any further transfer codings, ending with chunked. Requests sent with: "Transfer-Encoding: gzip, chunked" would incorrectly get ignored, and the request would use a Content-Length header instead to determine the body size of the HTTP message. This could allow for Waitress to treat a single request as multiple requests in the case of HTTP pipelining. This issue is fixed in Waitress 1.4.0.

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2019-16786?
Waitress through version 1.3.1 would parse the Transfer-Encoding header and only look for a single string value, if that value was not chunked it would fall through and use the Content-Length header instead. According to the HTTP standard Transfer-Encoding should be a comma separated list, with the inner-most encoding first, followed by any further transfer codings, ending with chunked. Requests sent with: "Transfer-Encoding: gzip, chunked" would incorrectly get ignored, and the request would use a Content-Length header instead to determine the body size of the HTTP message. This could allow for Waitress to treat a single request as multiple requests in the case of HTTP pipelining. This issue is fixed in Waitress 1.4.0.
How severe is CVE-2019-16786?
CVE-2019-16786 has a CVSS 3.x base score of 7.1, rated high severity. It is exploitable over network with high attack complexity, requires low privileges and no user interaction. Impact on confidentiality is high, integrity low, and availability none.
Is CVE-2019-16786 being actively exploited?
It is not currently listed in CISA's KEV catalog. Its EPSS exploit-prediction score is 3% (83rd percentile), an estimate of the probability of exploitation in the next 30 days.
What products are affected by CVE-2019-16786?
CVE-2019-16786 primarily affects Agendaless Waitress. In total, 6 product configurations (CPEs) are listed as vulnerable; see the affected-products list for the exact versions.
How do I fix CVE-2019-16786?
Review the linked vendor and NVD advisories for patched versions and mitigations, then upgrade or apply the recommended workaround. Given its high severity, prioritise patching exposed systems.
When was CVE-2019-16786 published?
CVE-2019-16786 was published on 2019-12-20 and last updated on 2026-06-17.

References

Affected products (6)

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