CVE-2026-43969 json
Cookie Request Header Injection via Unvalidated Encoder in cow_cookie:cookie/1
published 2026-05-11 5 mo ago modified 2026-10-26 13 d ago also EEF-CVE-2026-43969 , GHSA-g2wm-735q-3f56 , EUVD-2026-29193
- cvss
- 3.2
- version 3.1, NVD
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.1%
- EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 3%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences ('CRLF Injection') vulnerability in ninenines cowlib allows HTTP request splitting and cookie smuggling via unvalidated cookie name and value fields.
cow_cookie:cookie/1 in cowlib builds a client-side Cookie: request header from a list of name-value pairs without validating either field. An attacker who controls the cookie names or values passed to this function can inject ;, ,, CR, LF, or TAB characters into the serialized header. This enables two classes of attack: cookie smuggling within a single header (e.g. injecting ; admin=1 to introduce a phantom cookie that the receiving server treats as authentic) and HTTP request header splitting (injecting CRLF to append arbitrary headers or smuggle a complete second request against a shared upstream proxy). The decoder side (parse_cookie_name/1, parse_cookie_value/1) and setcookie/3 already validate and reject these characters; the encoder alone is missing the check.
This issue affects cowlib: from 2.9.0 before 2.21.0.
Patch / fix
- hex cowlib 2.21.0
- ninenines cowlib 2.21.0
- rabbitmq-server Azure Linux 3.0 3.13.7-10
azure linux advisories AZL-86787
Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT
Vendor advisories
What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.
red hat product security vex CVE-2026-43969 updated cvss 4.0
cowlib: cowlib: HTTP request splitting and cookie smuggling due to CRLF Injection.
-
Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat productsnot affected: vulnerable code not present
Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf
CISA SSVC
- Exploitation
- none
- Automatable
- no
- Technical impact
- partial
- Assessed
- 5 mo ago
Exploit prediction
0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 3% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).
CVSS scores
| assigned by | version | score | vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| CNA | 4.0 | 2.1 | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N |
| CNA | 4.0 | 2.1 | CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/VA:N/SC:N/SI:L/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X |
| NVD | 3.1 | 3.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N |
| GitHub | 3.1 | 3.2 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:N/I:L/A:N |
Affected packages
| ecosystem | package | affected | fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| hex | cowlib | >=2.9.0, <=2.16.1 >=2.9.0, <2.21.0 |
2.21.0 |
Affected products
- ninenines cowlib
Classification
- Weakness
-
- CWE-93 Improper Neutralization of CRLF Sequences
References
-
github.com
/erlef/cowlib/commit/177953dd51540da11090666c1f007214127a1144
patch, web
-
github.com
/ninenines/cowlib/commit/f017f8a0ecbffd5033d9ab49bf180186f7a523a7
related, web
-
github.com
/ninenines/cowlib/commit/c17fd73945ef536cccecc492d286fb6b6d1c3307
patch
-
cna.erlef.org
/cves/CVE-2026-43969.html
related, third-party-advisory, web, vendor-advisory
-
osv.dev
/vulnerability/EEF-CVE-2026-43969
related, web, third-party-advisory
-
nvd.nist.gov
/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-43969
advisory
-
github.com
/ninenines/cowlib
package
-
hex.pm
/packages/cowlib
package
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-43969
- GitHub Advisory GHSA-g2wm-735q-3f56
- NVD CVE-2026-43969
- OSV EEF-CVE-2026-43969
Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.