Hono: app.mount() strips mount prefix using undecoded path, causing incorrect routing for percent-encoded paths

Description

Summary

app.mount() strips the mount prefix from the incoming request path using the raw URL pathname, while route matching is performed against the percent-decoded path. This inconsistency causes the prefix to be stripped at the wrong position when the path contains percent-encoded multi-byte characters, resulting in the mounted sub-application receiving an incorrect path.

Details

When app.mount(prefix, subApp) is called, Hono calculates the number of characters to strip based on the decoded mount prefix length, but then applies that slice to the raw URL pathname. When the URL contains percent-encoded characters that expand to fewer characters when decoded (such as encoded non-ASCII characters), the two representations have different lengths, so the prefix is stripped at the wrong byte offset.

As a result, the sub-application receives a path that does not correspond to the intended sub-path — it may receive a partial or garbled path instead of the expected value after the mount prefix is removed.

This issue arises when an application uses app.mount() with paths that contain percent-encoded characters, particularly when the mount prefix itself or the request path contains encoded non-ASCII characters.

Impact

A mounted sub-application may receive an incorrectly stripped path, causing requests to be routed to unintended handlers within the sub-application.

This may lead to:

  • Middleware or route handlers in the sub-application being bypassed or incorrectly matched due to the malformed path
  • Requests reaching sub-application routes that the developer did not intend to be accessible via the mounted path

This issue affects applications that use app.mount() where the request URL may contain percent-encoded characters in the mount prefix or subsequent path segments.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
medium
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-06-04 18:01:00 UTC
Updated
2026-06-04 18:01:03 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-06-04 18:01:00 UTC
NVD published
2026-05-28

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.07% 20.90%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
5.3 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/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:N)
No account or special rights needed—anonymous or random user is enough.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:L)
Some sensitive info could get out, but not a total data dump.
Integrity (I:N)
Data isn’t meaningfully altered or forged.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests ('HTTP Request/Response Smuggling')
CWE-693 Protection Mechanism Failure

Credits

  • Rootingg (reporter)

Affected packages (1)

Vulnerable version ranges and first patched releases as published by GitHub.

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
npm hono < 4.12.21 4.12.21

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence