Fastify vulnerable to invalid content-type parsing, which could lead to validation bypass

Description

Impact

In applications that specify different validation strategies for different content types, it's possible to bypass the validation by providing a slightly altered content type such as with different casing or altered whitespacing before ;.

Users using the the following pattern are affected:

fastify.post('/', {
  handler(request, reply) {
    reply.code(200).send(request.body)
  },
  schema: {
    body: {
      content: {
        'application/json': {
          schema: {
            type: 'object',
            properties: {
              'foo': {
                type: 'string',
              }
            },
            required: ['foo']
          }
        },
      }
    }
  }
})

User using the following pattern are not affected:

fastify.post('/', {
  handler(request, reply) {
    reply.code(200).send(request.body)
  },
  schema: {
    body: {
      type: 'object',
      properties: {
        'foo': {
          type: 'string',
        }
      },
      required: ['foo']
    }
  }
})

Patches

This was patched in v5.3.1, but unfortunately it did not cover all problems. This has been fully patched in v5.3.2.
Version v4.9.0 was also affected by this issue. This has been fully patched in v4.9.1.

Workarounds

Do not specify multiple content types in the schema.

References

Are there any links users can visit to find out more?

https://hackerone.com/reports/3087928

Basic information

Type
reviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Open repository advisory ↗
Source code
Browse source ↗
Published (advisory)
2025-04-18 15:02:41 UTC
Updated
2025-05-29 21:04:55 UTC
GitHub reviewed
2025-04-18 15:02:41 UTC
NVD published
2025-04-18

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.49% 65.52%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.5 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/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:N)
Doesn’t really leak secrets in a meaningful way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:N)
Service keeps running; no real outage angle.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-1287 Improper Validation of Specified Type of Input

Credits

  • Linkster78 (analyst)
  • climba03003 (remediation_developer)
  • mcollina (coordinator)
  • Eomm (remediation_verifier)
  • jsumners (remediation_reviewer)

Affected packages (2)

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

Ecosystem Package Vulnerable range First patched Vulnerable functions
npm fastify >= 5.0.0, <= 5.3.1 5.3.2
npm fastify = 4.29.0 4.29.1

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence