CVE-2026-88879

Traefik before v2.11.56 Identity Spoofing via Header Alias

Published Sep 10, 2026 CVSS 4.0 · 5.3 Medium EPSS < 1% KEV · Not listed
Description
Traefik is an HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. In Traefik v1.x, v2.x through v2.11.55, and v3.0.0 through v3.7.11, header names are canonicalized only on dashes, so X-Auth-User, X_Auth_User and X.Auth.User are treated as three distinct headers by Traefik, while backends that derive variable names from header names (CGI, WSGI, PHP, NGINX and others) collapse them into a single variable. A client can therefore smuggle a dot-form alias of a header that Traefik manages past the middleware managing it — for example supplying X.Authenticated.User alongside the canonical X-Authenticated-User written by the ForwardAuth middleware — causing such a backend to read the client-supplied value instead of the identity Traefik asserted. In the tested configuration (PHP 8.2 built-in SAPI over an HTTP/1 backend path), Go's lexical header ordering makes the attacker-supplied value win deterministically, so a client that ForwardAuth admits as a low-privilege identity can be treated by the backend as a different user or role. Any header Traefik sets is affected, not only ForwardAuth's. This is an incomplete fix for GHSA-x677-9fxg-v5c5, which blocked only the underscore form. Fixed in v2.11.56 and v3.7.12, which add the aliasHeadersStrategy entry-point option; because it defaults to 'keep' for backwards compatibility, it must be explicitly set to 'delete' or 'reject' for the fix to take effect. Unmaintained release lines will not receive a patch.

Remediation

No solution or workaround provided in the CVE record

Tracking

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Advisories

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History
Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics cvssV3_1

{'score': 9.6, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N'}

cvssV3_1

{'score': 8.2, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:H/A:N'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-444
References
Metrics threat_severity

None

cvssV3_1

{'score': 9.6, 'vector': 'CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:N'}

threat_severity

Critical

Type Values Removed Values Added
Metrics ssvc

{'options': {'Automatable': 'no', 'Exploitation': 'none', 'Technical Impact': 'partial'}, 'version': '2.0.3'}

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description Traefik is an HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. In Traefik v1.x, v2.x through v2.11.55, and v3.0.0 through v3.7.11, header names are canonicalized only on dashes, so X-Auth-User, X_Auth_User and X.Auth.User are treated as three distinct headers by Traefik, while backends that derive variable names from header names (CGI, WSGI, PHP, NGINX and others) collapse them into a single variable. A client can therefore smuggle a dot-form alias of a header that Traefik manages past the middleware managing it — for example supplying X.Authenticated.User alongside the canonical X-Authenticated-User written by the ForwardAuth middleware — causing such a backend to read the client-supplied value instead of the identity Traefik asserted. In the tested configuration (PHP 8.2 built-in SAPI over an HTTP/1 backend path), Go's lexical header ordering makes the attacker-supplied value win deterministically, so a client that ForwardAuth admits as a low-privilege identity can be treated by the backend as a different user or role. Any header Traefik sets is affected, not only ForwardAuth's. This is an incomplete fix for GHSA-x677-9fxg-v5c5, which blocked only the underscore form. Fixed in v2.11.56 and v3.7.12, which add the aliasHeadersStrategy entry-point option; because it defaults to 'keep' for backwards compatibility, it must be explicitly set to 'delete' or 'reject' for the fix to take effect. Unmaintained release lines will not receive a patch.
Title Traefik before v2.11.56 Identity Spoofing via Header Alias
First Time appeared Traefik
Traefik traefik
Weaknesses CWE-290
CPEs cpe:2.3:a:traefik:traefik:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Traefik
Traefik traefik
References
Metrics cvssV4_0

{'score': 5.3, 'vector': 'CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:N/SC:H/SI:H/SA:N'}

Weaknesses

Sources

Status
PUBLISHED
Assigner
VulnCheck
Published
Updated
Oct 8, 2026, 3:25 PM
Reserved
Sep 10, 2026, 11:24 AM
Status
Analyzed
Published
Sep 10, 2026, 2:17 PM
Modified
Oct 8, 2026, 4:17 PM
Severity
Critical
Public date
Sep 10, 2026, 1:05 PM