Cloudflare Pingora: Hop-by-hop header passthrough enables access control bypass
Summary
Pingora-proxy forwarded client-nominated Connection headers to HTTP/1 upstreams, so a client could name headers that Pingora adds, such as X-Forwarded-For, and have them stripped by a downstream HTTP/1 intermediary that honors Connection. An unauthenticated remote attacker can thereby remove these headers and potentially bypass origin-side IP-based authorization. The issue only applies to chained deployments where such an intermediary sits between Pingora and an origin that trusts the added headers.
Affected
- Cloudflare Pingora versions 0.1.0 to before 0.9.0
- Default configuration is not affected
- Requires a chained deployment with an HTTP/1 intermediary that honors Connection nominations and an origin that trusts Pingora-added headers
Fixed in
- Upgrade to pingora 0.9.0 or later
Workaround
- If upgrading is not possible, remove the Connection header and every header it nominates in upstream_request_filter before adding trusted headers
- Do not use HttpUpstreamRequestPolicy::preserve() if the origin relies on headers added by Pingora
Exploitation
- No exploitation confirmed.
- CISA SSVC: exploitation none, automatable no, technical impact total.
- No public proof of concept listed by the Hacker Wire.
Our recommendation
- Identify Rust services that depend on pingora-proxy (for example with cargo tree -i pingora-proxy).
- Upgrade affected services to pingora 0.9.0 or later, including the related HTTP/2 fixes in the same release.
- Review origin-side logic that trusts X-Forwarded-For or similar headers for access control.
- Prioritise internet-exposed Pingora gateways that use IP-based origin checks.
Public exploits
PoC-in-GitHub, Metasploit and Exploit-DB list nothing for this CVE.
Research sources
- Pingora 0.9.0 release notes github.com
- Pingora CHANGELOG github.com
- Pingora GitHub repository github.com
- OSV record via Vulners vulners.com
- OpenCVE CVE-2026-105299 app.opencve.io
- VulDB CVE-2026-105299 vuldb.com
- Strix CVE record www.strix.ai
- The Hacker Wire www.thehackerwire.com
Researched and written up in English and German by an AI (Claude by Anthropic) based on NVD, CISA, EPSS and the sources listed. The vendor information is authoritative. Researched on 1 Nov 2026, 01:35.
Original description (NVD)
Summary Before version 0.9.0, the HTTP/1 upstream path in pingora-proxy passed the downstream request through upstream_request_filter and wrote it to the upstream without removing the client's Connection header, other hop-by-hop headers, or the headers Connection nominated, although RFC 9110 Section 7.6.1 requires intermediaries to remove them. The HTTP/2 upstream path already removed Connection and related HTTP/1-specific headers. A client could therefore nominate a header that the application adds in upstream_request_filter (for example, Connection: keep-alive, X-Forwarded-For). A downstream HTTP/1 intermediary that honors Connection would then strip the Pingora-added header before it reached the origin. Impact Specifically affects chained deployments where an HTTP/1 intermediary between Pingora and the origin processes Connection nominations (for example, Go's net/http/httputil.ReverseProxy) and the origin trusts headers added by that intermediary (for example, X-Forwarded-For for IP-based authorization). A remote, unauthenticated attacker can have those headers removed, potentially bypassing authorization. The reporter demonstrated access to an IP-restricted endpoint using X-Forwarded-For for IP validation on the origin. This is the same class of issue as CVE-2022-31813 in Apache HTTP Server. Note that Cloudflare CDN customers were unaffected, as no such chained deployment as described above exists with internal Pingora services, and Connection headers are sanitized before arriving at Pingora gateways. Mitigation: * Upgrade to pingora 0.9.0 or later. By default, Pingora now removes hop-by-hop and Connection-nominated headers from upstream requests, and rejects requests whose Connection header nominates Host, X-Forwarded-For, X-Forwarded-Host, X-Forwarded-Proto, or a pseudo-header. This is controlled by PeerOptions::http_upstream_request_policy (HttpUpstreamRequestPolicy). Fix commits: https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora/commit/28c18e6b6b04dd0bd937234e5950049e6d74cded , https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora/commit/ca23f1668eca8e78be7ba62ef0edbd458b40eeee * Do not use HttpUpstreamRequestPolicy::preserve() if the origin relies on headers added by Pingora; it restores the old passthrough behavior. * If you cannot upgrade: in upstream_request_filter, remove the Connection header and every header it nominates before adding trusted headers.
NVD references (1)
Sources
The tracker combines official, freely usable data sources – updated continuously:
- NVD (NIST) – CVEs, rating (CVSS), affected products
- CISA KEV – vulnerabilities confirmed by CISA as actively exploited
- CISA Vulnrichment – CISA assessment (SSVC) in the official CVE record
- FIRST EPSS – probability of exploitation
- Microsoft MSRC – Patch Tuesday: vulnerabilities, severity, updates
- PoC-in-GitHub – public proof-of-concept repositories
- Metasploit (Rapid7) – modules of the Metasploit Framework
- Exploit-DB (OffSec) – archive of public exploits (links only)
- Patch days: official vendor pages (linked per vendor) (Vendor patch days)
This product uses data from the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. EPSS data © FIRST.org.
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