Feathers exposes internal headers via unencrypted session cookie

Description

All HTTP request headers are stored in the session cookie, which is signed but not encrypted, exposing internal proxy/gateway headers to clients.

The OAuth service stores the complete headers object in the session:

// https://github.com/feathersjs/feathers/blob/dove/packages/authentication-oauth/src/service.ts#L173
session.headers = headers;

The session is persisted using cookie-session, which base64-encodes the data. While the cookie is signed to prevent tampering, the contents are readable by anyone by simply decoding the base64 value.

Under specific deployment configurations (e.g., behind reverse proxies or API gateways), this can lead to exposure of sensitive internal infrastructure details such as API keys, service tokens, and internal IP addresses.

Credits: Abdelwahed Madani Yousfi (@vvxhid) / Edoardo Geraci (@b0-n0-b0) / Thomas Rinsma (@ThomasRinsma) From Codean Labs.

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2026-02-19 20:32:37 UTC
Updated
2026-02-23 22:26:50 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2026-02-19 20:32:37 UTC
NVD published
2026-02-21

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.01% 1.50%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
8.2 4.0
CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:H/VI:N/VA:N/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:N)
Could be attacked over the internet or any normal routed network.
Attack complexity (AC:H)
Exploitation depends on constrained or hard-to-reproduce conditions.
Attack requirements (AT:P)
Additional preconditions must be present for exploitation.
Privileges required (PR:N)
No privileges are required.
User interaction (UI:N)
No user interaction is required.
Vulnerable system confidentiality impact (VC:H)
High confidentiality impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system integrity impact (VI:N)
No integrity impact on the vulnerable system.
Vulnerable system availability impact (VA:N)
No availability impact on the vulnerable system.
Subsequent system confidentiality impact (SC:N)
No confidentiality impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system integrity impact (SI:N)
No integrity impact on subsequent systems.
Subsequent system availability impact (SA:N)
No availability impact on subsequent systems.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Credits

  • vvxhid (other)
  • b0-n0-b0 (other)

Affected packages (1)

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

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
npm @feathersjs/authentication-oauth <= 5.0.39 5.0.40

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence