Executive brief
Apache Camel's AWS SQS connector fails to filter untrusted message headers when receiving messages from the queue, allowing any sender with permission to write to the queue to inject Camel internal control headers. An attacker can exploit this to hijack downstream processing—for example, redirecting HTTP requests to different servers, changing file paths, modifying database queries, or altering other producer behavior—potentially leading to data exposure, file manipulation, or service compromise depending on what the application does with received messages.
Technical details
This is an improper input validation vulnerability (CWE-20) affecting the camel-aws2-sqs component's HeaderFilterStrategy. The Sqs2HeaderFilterStrategy class configured only an outbound filter via setOutFilterPattern, blocking Camel headers from being written to SQS, but omitted inbound filtering. When Sqs2Consumer processes incoming SQS MessageAttributes via HeaderFilterStrategy.applyFilterToExternalHeaders, the default strategy applies no inbound rules, passing through all headers unchanged—including Camel internal control headers (e.g., CamelHttpUri, CamelFileName, CamelSqlQuery). Any principal with sqs:SendMessage permission (cross-account principals, in-account services with limited privileges) can craft malicious SQS messages with injected control headers. These headers steer downstream producers into unintended behavior (HTTP redirects, file path traversal, SQL query injection) and propagate across internal direct, seda, and vm hops. The fix adds case-insensitive inbound filtering of the Camel* and camel* header namespaces. Patches: 4.14.8, 4.18.3, 4.21.0. Mitigations: strip Camel headers at route start or restrict SQS sender permissions.
Affected products
- Apache Camel 4.0.0 before 4.14.8, 4.15.0 before 4.18.3, 4.19.0 before 4.21.0
Timeline
- 2026-07-06: disclosed: Vulnerability published to GitHub Advisory Database
- 2026-07-06: patched: Patch released in versions 4.14.8, 4.18.3, and 4.21.0