CVE-2026-26998
MEDIUMTraefik: unbounded io.ReadAll on auth server response body causes OOM denial of service(DOS)
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.
Blast Radius
github.com/traefik/traefik/v2🐹github.com/traefik/traefik/v3Real-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Go packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
Traefik is an HTTP reverse proxy and load balancer. Prior to versions 2.11.38 and 3.6.9, there is a potential vulnerability in Traefik managing the ForwardAuth middleware responses. When Traefik is configured to use the ForwardAuth middleware, the response body from the authentication server is read entirely into memory without any size limit. There is no maxResponseBodySize configuration to restrict the amount of data read from the authentication server response. If the authentication server returns an unexpectedly large or unbounded response body, Traefik will allocate unlimited memory, potentially causing an out-of-memory (OOM) condition that crashes the process. This results in a denial of service for all routes served by the affected Traefik instance. This issue has been patched in versions 2.11.38 and 3.6.9.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐹Go | github.com/traefik/traefik/v2 | all versions | 2.11.38 |
| 🐹Go | github.com/traefik/traefik/v3 | all versions | 3.6.9 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for github.com/traefik/traefik/v2. 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 github.com/traefik/traefik/v2 to 2.11.38 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-26998 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-2026-26998 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-2026-26998. 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-2026-26998 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-26998 across Go dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.