CVE-2026-16728 — undici
MEDIUMCVE-2026-16728 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.8) CWE-444 vulnerability in undici. A fix is available for undici — see the affected versions and patch details below.
undici vulnerable to downstream response desynchronization via retry interceptor
Exploitation Status
No confirmed exploitation observed yet
- CISA’s own triage has not observed active exploitation or public proof-of-concept code for this CVE as of its last assessment.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-16728.
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-2026-16728 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 374,847 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.
undicinpmDescription
undici's retry interceptor can deliver a response whose body length does not match the Content-Length header exposed to the application after a retry or resume of a partial response. In undici before 6.28.0, from 7.0.0 up to before 7.29.0, and from 8.0.0 up to before 8.9.0, a malicious or faulty upstream can return a partial response with a mismatched framing header, close the socket early, and have the retry interceptor assemble a body of a different length while the original Content-Length stays attached. Applications that use the retry interceptor and forward upstream headers and bodies downstream, such as proxies or gateways, may then emit an invalid HTTP response with a stale Content-Length, leading to downstream response desynchronization, connection hangs, or response corruption. Exploitation requires the retry interceptor enabled, an upstream returning a mismatched partial response, and a downstream forwarder that does not remove or recalculate Content-Length. The issue is fixed in undici 6.28.0, 7.29.0, and 8.9.0.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | undici | all versions | 6.28.0npm install undici@6.28.0 |
| 📦npm | undici | ≥ 7.0.0&&< 7.29.0 | 7.29.0npm install undici@7.29.0 |
| 📦npm | undici | ≥ 8.0.0&&< 8.9.0 | 8.9.0npm install undici@8.9.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for undici, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update undici to 6.28.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-16728 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-2026-16728 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-16728. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Hardened Images | nodejs26-main-26.5.1-1.5.hum1 | RHSA-2026:48273 |
| Red Hat Hardened Images | nodejs24-main-24.18.1-0.1.hum1 | RHSA-2026:48537 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-16728 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-16728 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.