# Can AI do novel security research? Meet the HTTP Terminator

AI-driven research found a desync trigger in Apache Traffic Server via malformed DELETE with Content-Location and TRACE body, enabling response queue poisoning.

- Payout: Research
- Severity: high
- Program: Apache Traffic Server
- Credited: PortSwigger Research
- Disclosed: 2026-08-05
- CVE: CVE-2026-63078
- Write-up quality: 9/10
- Original: https://portswigger.net/research/can-ai-do-novel-security-research
- Library page: https://bugbountylibrary.com/r/blog%3Aportswigger-net-research-can-ai-do-novel-security-research
- Tags: domain:web impact:data-leak kind:research platform:research sev:high technique:chained technique:source-review vuln:request-smuggling

**Target:** HTTP server (Apache Traffic Server)
**Root cause:** The server mishandles a DELETE request with a Content-Location header and a TRACE body, causing a desync that allows response queue poisoning.
**Steps:**
1. Send `DELETE /foo HTTP/1.1` with `Host: redacted`, `Content-Location: http://attacker.com/`, `Max-Forwards: 0`, `Content-Length: 12`, and body `TRACE /?x=yz HTTP/1.1\r\nX: Y`.
2. Observe response containing inline headers and a second response, indicating desync.
3. Combine with victim requests to achieve response queue poisoning.
**How found:** The HTTP Terminator generated a cache-poisoning payload from RFC micro-inspiration, which after permutation and anomaly detection revealed the desync in Apache Traffic Server.
**Exploitation:** The desync trigger causes the front-end to misassociate responses, allowing an attacker to poison the response queue and steal victim data such as session cookies.
**Escalation:** Chained with anomaly detection and permutation to discover the trigger; potential for RQP leading to account takeover.
**Insight:** Shared parser code between requests and responses can be exploited: response-specific features like Content-Location may be processed in requests, leading to desync.