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Fencer Intel
high 8.1

CVE-2026-52845 json

Caddy: FastCGI header normalization bypass in `forward_auth copy_headers`

published 4mo ago modified 17d ago also EUVD-2026-38558 , GHSA-f59h-q822-g45g , GO-2026-5346

cvss
8.1
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 39%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Caddy is an extensible server platform that uses TLS by default. Prior to 2.11.4, forward_auth copy_headers deletes the exact client-supplied identity header before copying the trusted value from the auth gateway. But when the request later goes through php_fastcgi, Caddy normalizes HTTP headers into CGI variables by replacing - with _. This lets a client send an underscore alias that survives the forward_auth delete step but becomes the same PHP/FastCGI variable. Result: a remote client can inject or sometimes override identity/group headers trusted by PHP/FastCGI applications behind Caddy. This vulnerability is fixed in 2.11.4.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2 2.11.4
  • caddyserver caddy 2.11.4
  • caddy Debian 12 2.6.2-5+deb12u1
  • caddy Debian 13 2.6.2-12+deb13u1
  • caddy Debian 14 2.11.4-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-52845

  • govulncheck-vulndb SLES 16.0, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 0.0.20260727T201416-160000.1.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:23216-1SUSE-SU-2026:23227-1

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Leap 16.0 0.0.20260727T201416-160000.1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21551-1

Is CVE-2026-52845 in your dependencies? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-52845 updated cvss 8.1

github.com/caddyserver/caddy: Caddy: Remote client can inject or override identity headers via header normalization

  • Red Hat Hardened Images caddy
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
Proof of concept is public
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
4mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.45% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 39% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/security/advisories/GHSA-f59h-q822-g45g referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
CISA ADP 3.1 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
GitHub 3.1 8.1 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/caddyserver/caddy/v2
<2.11.4
2.11.4
go github.com/caddyserver/caddy
<=1.0.5
 no fix listed

Affected products

  • caddyserver caddy
  • Red Hat Red Hat Hardened Images

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-287 Improper Authentication
  • CWE-290 Authentication Bypass by Spoofing
  • CWE-444 Inconsistent Interpretation of HTTP Requests

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

CPEs and fixed versions use Anchore's correction of NVD's data: Added CPE configurations because not yet analyzed by NVD.