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Leafnode spoofing of Nats-Request-Info identity information

Moderate
philpennock published GHSA-55h8-8g96-x4hj Mar 24, 2026

Package

gomod github.com/nats-io/nats-server/v2 (Go)

Affected versions

<= 2.12.5, <= 2.11.14

Patched versions

2.12.6, 2.11.15

Description

Background

NATS.io is a high performance open source pub-sub distributed communication technology, built for the cloud, on-premise, IoT, and edge computing.

The nats-server allows hub/spoke topologies using "leafnode" connections by other nats-servers. NATS messages can have headers.

Problem Description

The nats-server offers a Nats-Request-Info: message header, providing information about a request. This is supposed to provide enough information to allow for account/user identification, such that NATS clients could make their own decisions on how to trust a message, provided that they trust the nats-server as a broker.

A leafnode connecting to a nats-server is not fully trusted unless the system account is bridged too. Thus identity claims should not have propagated unchecked.

Thus NATS clients relying upon the Nats-Request-Info: header could be spoofed.

Does not directly affect the nats-server itself, but the CVSS Confidentiality and Integrity scores are based upon what a hypothetical client might choose to do with this NATS header.

Affected Versions

Any version before v2.12.6 or v2.11.15

Workarounds

None.

References

Severity

Moderate

CVSS overall score

This score calculates overall vulnerability severity from 0 to 10 and is based on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).
/ 10

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector
Network
Attack complexity
Low
Privileges required
Low
User interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
Low
Integrity
Low
Availability
None

CVSS v3 base metrics

Attack vector: More severe the more the remote (logically and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Attack complexity: More severe for the least complex attacks.
Privileges required: More severe if no privileges are required.
User interaction: More severe when no user interaction is required.
Scope: More severe when a scope change occurs, e.g. one vulnerable component impacts resources in components beyond its security scope.
Confidentiality: More severe when loss of data confidentiality is highest, measuring the level of data access available to an unauthorized user.
Integrity: More severe when loss of data integrity is the highest, measuring the consequence of data modification possible by an unauthorized user.
Availability: More severe when the loss of impacted component availability is highest.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:L/I:L/A:N

CVE ID

CVE-2026-33246

Weaknesses

No CWEs