GitHub Advisoryadvisory · npm
GHSA-p68q-wchp-6fh7 fastify vulnerable to authentication bypass via malformed URLs reaching encapsulated not-found handlers
HIGH
Official page ↗
- Aliases
- CVE-2026-76169
- Ecosystem
- npm
- Packages
- fastify
- Severity
- High
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
- Weaknesses
- CWE-288
- Reviewed
- 2026-09-30
Affected packages
• npm fastify: >= 4.0.0, < 5.12.2 → fixed in 5.12.2
Description
Impact
Fastify routes a malformed URL under one plugin prefix to the custom not-found handler of a different sibling plugin, invoking the handler registered last and skipping the `preHandler` declared in its `setNotFoundHandler()`. When the request method has no route in the main router, a malformed request target reaches Fastify's internal not-found router before URL decoding and is dispatched through a single shared handler pointer, regardless of prefix and without the normal request lifecycle. An unauthenticated request to a public prefix can therefore reach an authentication-protected not-found handler registered under a different prefix and receive its full response, breaking prefix encapsulation and bypassing the authentication hook. Applications whose private or tenant fallbacks return protected data from a not-found handler are affected.
Patches
Patched in fastify 5.12.2. Malformed URLs are now routed through the configured `onBadUrl` and `onMaxParamLength` handlers so they fail closed before any application not-found handler runs, and the shared not-found handler pointer has been removed.
Workarounds
Reject malformed request targets before they reach the application, for example at an upstream proxy or gateway, and do not rely on a not-found handler to serve protected data. A global `onRequest` authentication hook does not mitigate this, because the malformed-URL path skips it.
Related
Alias · CVE (1)
- CVE-2026-76169 fastify versions >= 4.0.0 and before 5.12.2 can route a malformed URL sent under one plugin prefix to the custom not-found handler of a… vulnerability
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-288 Authentication Bypass Using an Alternate Path or Channel weakness
References
- https://github.com/fastify/fastify/security/advisories/GHSA-p68q-wchp-6fh7 web
- https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-76169 advisory
- https://github.com/fastify/fastify/commit/93c239a380f3f2778bb7565fcdf777e91cfe1fbc web
- https://cna.openjsf.org/security-advisories.html web
- https://github.com/fastify/fastify package
- https://github.com/fastify/fastify/releases/tag/v5.12.2 web