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undici vulnerable to cross-user information disclosure via whitespace around equals in Cache-Control directives

Moderate
mcollina published GHSA-jr45-8vmc-qm54 Jul 29, 2026

Package

npm undici (npm)

Affected versions

7.0.0 < 7.29.0; 8.0.0 < 8.9.0

Patched versions

7.29.0; 8.9.0

Description

Impact

Undici's cache interceptor mishandles optional whitespace (OWS) placed around the = of a qualified no-cache or private Cache-Control directive, such as no-cache ="authorization" (OWS before =) or no-cache= "authorization" (OWS after =). The parser either drops the directive entirely or stores a field name with literal quote characters, so the downstream cache decisions do not recognize the qualification and the response is stored.

In shared-cache mode, this allows a response containing one user's authenticated data to be served from cache to a subsequent caller, including an unauthenticated caller, when both requests resolve to the same cache key. The impact class is identical to CVE-2026-9678 (GHSA-pr7r-676h-xcf6); this advisory covers the whitespace-around-= bypass that the earlier fix did not normalize.

Affected applications are those that explicitly enable the cache interceptor (interceptors.cache()) in shared mode, forward Authorization headers upstream, and receive cacheable responses with qualified private or no-cache directives whose field-name list is padded with OWS around the =.

Patches

Upgrade to undici v7.29.0 or v8.9.0.

Workarounds

If upgrade is not immediately possible, disable shared-cache mode for traffic that includes Authorization headers, avoid caching responses to authenticated requests, or add Vary: Authorization upstream.

References

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
High
Privileges required
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

CVE ID

CVE-2026-14643

Weaknesses

Interpretation Conflict

Product A handles inputs or steps differently than Product B, which causes A to perform incorrect actions based on its perception of B's state. Learn more on MITRE.

Use of Cache Containing Sensitive Information

The code uses a cache that contains sensitive information, but the cache can be read by an actor outside of the intended control sphere. Learn more on MITRE.

Credits