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GHSA-fvhj-4qfh-q2hm

MediumCVSS 6.5 / 10
Published Dec 5, 2023·Last modified Feb 4, 2026
Affected Components(0)

No affected components available

Description

Summary

When a request is sent to Traefik with a URL fragment, Traefik automatically URL encodes and forwards the fragment to the backend server. This violates the RFC because in the origin-form the URL should only contain the absolute path and the query.

When this is combined with another frontend proxy like Nginx, it can be used to bypass frontend proxy URI-based access control restrictions.

Details

For example, we have this Nginx configuration:

location /admin {
     deny all;
     return 403;
}

This can be bypassed when the attacker is requesting to /#/../admin

This won’t be vulnerable if the backend server follows the RFC and ignores any characters after the fragment.

However, if Nginx is chained with another reverse proxy which automatically URL encode the character # (Traefik) the URL will become

/%23/../admin

And allow the attacker to completely bypass the Access Restriction from the Nginx Front-End proxy.

Here is a diagram to summarize the attack:

image

PoC

image (1)

This is the POC docker I've set up. It contains Nginx, Traefik proxies and a backend server running PHP.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vLnA0g7N7ZKhLNmHmuJ4JJjV_J2akNMt/view?usp=sharing

Impact

This allows the attacker to completely bypass the Access Restriction from Front-End proxy.

Risk Scores
Base Score
6.5

The vulnerability can be exploited over the network without needing physical access. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a low impact on the confidentiality of the information. There is a low impact on the integrity of the data.

Threat Intelligence
6.0

Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.

EPSS
0.63%

The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.

Exploit
Not available

We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.

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