follow-redirects is a Node.js HTTP and HTTPS client wrapper that automatically follows redirects. From version 1.16.0 to before version 1.16.1, follow-redirects removes sensitive credential headers (Authorization, Proxy-Authorization, Cookie, and any caller-declared sensitiveHeaders) before following a redirect that crosses to a different host or downgrades to a less secure protocol. The removal routine iterates the callers headers container with for…in and matches header names against a filter. This assumes the headers container is a plain object keyed by header names. Nodes underlying http.request, which follow-redirects is a drop-in replacement for, also accepts headers as an alternating array of names and values. For an array, for…in yields the numeric indices 0, 1, 2 and so on, which never match a header-name filter, so nothing is removed. An application that sends array-form headers and follows an attacker-controlled cross-origin redirect therefore forwards its Authorization, Cookie, and Proxy-Authorization headers verbatim to the attacker-controlled destination, with no error or warning. The sensitiveHeaders option added to fix CVE-2026-40895 / GHSA-r4q5-vmmm-2653 is equally ineffective, because it relies on the same helper. This is an unauthenticated confidentiality vulnerability: any remote server the victim application contacts can harvest the victims credential headers by responding with a cross-origin redirect. This issue has been patched in version 1.16.1.
Weakness
The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information.
Affected Software
| Name | Vendor | Start Version | End Version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Hardened Images | RedHat | grafana12-4-main-12.4.13-0.3.hum1 | * |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | RedHat | grafana13-1-main-13.1.8-0.4.hum1 | * |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | RedHat | grafana13-2-main-13.2.4-0.3.hum1 | * |
Extended Description
There are many different kinds of mistakes that introduce information exposures. The severity of the error can range widely, depending on the context in which the product operates, the type of sensitive information that is revealed, and the benefits it may provide to an attacker. Some kinds of sensitive information include:
Information might be sensitive to different parties, each of which may have their own expectations for whether the information should be protected. These parties include:
Information exposures can occur in different ways:
It is common practice to describe any loss of confidentiality as an “information exposure,” but this can lead to overuse of CWE-200 in CWE mapping. From the CWE perspective, loss of confidentiality is a technical impact that can arise from dozens of different weaknesses, such as insecure file permissions or out-of-bounds read. CWE-200 and its lower-level descendants are intended to cover the mistakes that occur in behaviors that explicitly manage, store, transfer, or cleanse sensitive information.
Potential Mitigations
- Compartmentalize the system to have “safe” areas where trust boundaries can be unambiguously drawn. Do not allow sensitive data to go outside of the trust boundary and always be careful when interfacing with a compartment outside of the safe area.
- Ensure that appropriate compartmentalization is built into the system design, and the compartmentalization allows for and reinforces privilege separation functionality. Architects and designers should rely on the principle of least privilege to decide the appropriate time to use privileges and the time to drop privileges.
Related Attack Patterns
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- https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/79.html
References
- https://github.com/follow-redirects/follow-redirects/commit/9865ca45490e4d0f7b6944870318408344570aff
- https://github.com/follow-redirects/follow-redirects/releases/tag/v1.16.1
- https://github.com/follow-redirects/follow-redirects/security/advisories/GHSA-q3jh-wrc6-jgq8
- https://github.com/follow-redirects/follow-redirects/security/advisories/GHSA-q3jh-wrc6-jgq8