CVE-2026-18174

@fastify/forwarded vulnerable to improper input validation via unstripped tab characters in X-Forwarded-For

State
Published
Severity
5.3 Medium
Published
Jul 29, 2026
Updated
Jul 29, 2026
Reserved
Jul 28, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

@fastify/forwarded resolves client addresses from the X-Forwarded-For header. In versions before 3.0.2, when the header contains two or more comma separated entries, the parser trims only space characters and does not strip horizontal tabs, even though RFC 7230 defines optional whitespace as both space and tab. As a result, an entry padded with a tab keeps the literal tab in the resolved address string. Applications that make exact string match security decisions on the resolved client IP, such as an allowlist, a blocklist, a per IP rate limit key, or audit log correlation, can be evaded because the tab corrupted string no longer matches the expected value. This does not cross the trust boundary, since a tab corrupted string is not a valid IP and cannot be mistaken for a trusted proxy. The issue is fixed in @fastify/forwarded 3.0.2.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.15.3 MediumCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:Nopenjs

Weaknesses

  • CWE-20 Improper Input Validation
  • CWE-184 Incomplete List of Disallowed Inputs

Affected Products

ProductVersions
@fastify/forwarded@fastify/forwarded
  • before 3.0.2Affected
  • 3.0.2Not affected

References

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