CVE-2024-28849 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) Information Exposure vulnerability in follow-redirects. A fix is available for follow-redirects — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Proxy-Authorization header kept across hosts in follow-redirects
Exploitation Status
Proof-of-concept exploit code exists
- CISA’s SSVC triage found public proof-of-concept exploit code for this CVE, though no confirmed active exploitation.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2024-28849.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2024-28849 plotted by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). The shaded corner — EPSS 50%+ and CVSS 7.0+ — is where this CVE doesn't sit, though severity or exploitability alone can still warrant action.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 377,333 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Real counts from FIRST.org, not a sample — log-scaled since the landscape is heavily right-skewed.
Real-World Exposure
How broadly this vulnerability is actually deployed: weekly install volume shows current usage, and reverse-dependency count shows how many other packages break if it stays unpatched.
follow-redirectsnpmDescription
When using axios, its dependency follow-redirects only clears authorization header during cross-domain redirect, but allows the proxy-authentication header which contains credentials too.
Steps To Reproduce & PoC
Test code:
const axios = require('axios');
axios.get('http://127.0.0.1:10081/', {
headers: {
'AuThorization': 'Rear Test',
'ProXy-AuthoriZation': 'Rear Test',
'coOkie': 't=1'
}
})
.then((response) => {
console.log(response);
})
When I meet the cross-domain redirect, the sensitive headers like authorization and cookie are cleared, but proxy-authentication header is kept.
Impact
This vulnerability may lead to credentials leak.
Recommendations
Remove proxy-authentication header during cross-domain redirect
Recommended Patch
- removeMatchingHeaders(/^(?:authorization|cookie)$/i, this._options.headers);
+ removeMatchingHeaders(/^(?:authorization|proxy-authorization|cookie)$/i, this._options.headers);
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | follow-redirects | all versions | 1.15.6npm install follow-redirects@1.15.6 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for follow-redirects, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update follow-redirects to 1.15.6 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2024-28849 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 Security's impact-aware SCA analyses which vulnerable code paths your application actually calls, so a match like CVE-2024-28849 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2024-28849. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| HawtIO 4.0.0 for Red Hat build of Apache Camel 4 | follow-redirects | RHSA-2024:3550 |
| Migration Toolkit for Runtimes 1 on RHEL 8 | follow-redirects | RHSA-2024:3920 |
| MTA-6.2-RHEL-9 | mta/mta-ui-rhel9:6.2.3-2 | RHSA-2024:3989 |
| MTA-7.0-RHEL-9 | mta/mta-cli-rhel9:7.0.3-16 | RHSA-2024:3316 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.5 for RHEL 9 | multicluster-engine/console-mce-rhel9:v2.5.3-7 | RHBA-2024:2862 |
| NETWORK-OBSERVABILITY-1.6.0-RHEL-9 | network-observability/network-observability-cli-rhel9:v1.6.0-66 | RHSA-2024:3868 |
| OpenShift-Pipelines-1.15-RHEL-8 | openshift-pipelines/pipelines-chains-controller-rhel8:v1.15.0-18 | RHEA-2024:3997 |
| Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.10 for RHEL 9 | rhacm2/console-rhel9:v2.10.2-3 | RHBA-2024:2034 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2024-28849 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2024-28849 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.