CVE-2026-25480
MEDIUMCVE-2026-25480 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.5) CWE-176 vulnerability in litestar. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-25480 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
FileStore key canonicalization collisions allow response cache mixup/poisoning (ASCII ord + Unicode NFKD)
Blast Radius
litestarReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects PyPI packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Litestar is an Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface (ASGI) framework. Prior to 2.20.0, FileStore maps cache keys to filenames using Unicode NFKD normalization and ord() substitution without separators, creating key collisions. When FileStore is used as response-cache backend, an unauthenticated remote attacker can trigger cache key collisions via crafted paths, causing one URL to serve cached responses of another (cache poisoning/mixup). This vulnerability is fixed in 2.20.0.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐍PyPI | litestar | ≥ 2.19.0&&< 2.20.0 | 2.20.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for litestar. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update litestar to 2.20.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-25480 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 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-25480 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-25480. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-25480 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-25480 across PyPI dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.