CVE-2025-64484 | OAuth2-Proxy vulnerable to header smuggling via underscore, leading to potential privilege escalation

OAuth2-Proxy is an open-source tool that can act as either a standalone reverse proxy or a middleware component integrated into existing reverse proxy or load balancer setups. In versions prior to 7.13.0, all deployments of OAuth2 Proxy in front of applications that normalize underscores to dashes in HTTP headers (e.g., WSGI-based frameworks such as Django, Flask, FastAPI, and PHP applications). Authenticated users can inject underscore variants of X-Forwarded-* headers that bypass the proxy’s filtering logic, potentially escalating privileges in the upstream app. OAuth2 Proxy authentication/authorization itself is not compromised. The problem has been patched with v7.13.0. By default all specified headers will now be normalized, meaning that both capitalization and the use of underscores (_) versus dashes (-) will be ignored when matching headers to be stripped. For example, both `X-Forwarded-For` and `X_Forwarded-for` will now be treated as equivalent and stripped away. For those who have a rational that requires keeping a similar looking header and not stripping it, the maintainers introduced a new configuration field for Headers managed through the AlphaConfig called `InsecureSkipHeaderNormalization`. As a workaround, ensure filtering and processing logic in upstream services don't treat underscores and hyphens in Headers the same way.

Published: 2025-11-10 Last update: 2026-04-15 Assigner: [email protected] Source: [email protected]

Conclusion & alert: CVE-2025-64484 is rated Low Risk (38.3/100): CVSS High severity, with low exploitation likelihood (EPSS 0.04%). Mandatory action: Monitor for updates and reassess as exploit intelligence or EPSS changes.

Risk is dynamic; we continuously reassess and refresh what is shown on this page as upstream context changes.

Exploit prediction scoring system (EPSS) score for CVE-2025-64484

EPSS lead: Daily EPSS estimates relative likelihood of exploitation; percentile ranks this CVE among scored vulnerabilities (higher = more severe relative rank).

# Date Old EPSS score New EPSS score Delta (New - Old)
1 2026-05-05 0.06% 0.04% -0.02%
2 2026-04-15 0.03% 0.06% +0.03%
3 2025-11-21 0.03%

Full EPSS history (4 records total)

Common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) metrics for CVE-2025-64484

CVSS metrics for this CVE.

Base score Version Severity Vector Exploitability Impact Score source
8.5 3.1 HIGH
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:L/A:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network—not just someone sitting at the machine.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:C)
Breaking this can reach past the original component and bite other resources—bigger blast radius.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:L)
Attackers could change some data, but it’s limited—not everything goes.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.
3.1 4.7 [email protected]

Weakness enumeration for CVE-2025-64484

GitHub Security Advisory for CVE-2025-64484

GHSA-vjrc-mh2v-45x6 · Severity: high · Ecosystem: go — OAuth2-Proxy is vulnerable to header smuggling via underscore leading to potential privilege escalation

OS Trackers for CVE-2025-64484

vendor priority summary link
redhat high https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2025-64484

Affected software / configurations for CVE-2025-64484

Vendor Product Version Raw CPE
No affected products in dataset.

References for CVE-2025-64484

cvelogic Threat Intelligence