CVE-2026-40175 is a medium-severity (CVSS 4.8) CWE-113 vulnerability in axios. A fix is available for axios — see the affected versions and patch details below.
Axios has Unrestricted Cloud Metadata Exfiltration via Header Injection Chain
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.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA’s SSVC triage for CVE-2026-40175.
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-2026-40175 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 377,166 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.
axiosnpmDescription
Axios is a promise based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. Versions prior to 1.15.0 and 0.3.1 are vulnerable to a specific gadget-style attack chain in which prototype pollution in a third-party dependency may be leveraged to inject unsanitized header values into outbound requests. This vulnerability is fixed in 1.15.0 and 0.3.1.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📦npm | axios | ≥ 1.0.0&&< 1.15.0 | 1.15.0npm install axios@1.15.0 |
| 📦npm | axios | all versions | 0.31.0npm install axios@0.31.0 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for axios, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update axios to 1.15.0 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-40175 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-2026-40175 can be triaged on real exposure rather than presence alone.
Tailored to CVE-2026-40175. 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.
The Axios library, a promise-based HTTP client, is susceptible to an Important prototype pollution vulnerability. This flaw, when combined with specific "Gadget" attack chains in third-party dependencies, can lead to remote code execution or full cloud compromise, including bypassing AWS IMDSv2. With pollution check…
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform 2.6 for RHEL 9 | automation-platform-ui-0:2.6.9-1.el9ap | RHSA-2026:24762 |
| Streams for Apache Kafka 3.2.0 | com.github.streamshub-console | RHSA-2026:13571 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.1 | multicluster-engine/console-mce-rhel9:1777128790 | RHSA-2026:13542 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.6 | multicluster-engine/console-mce-rhel9:1778511348 | RHSA-2026:17657 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.8 | multicluster-engine/console-mce-rhel9:1778383863 | RHSA-2026:17699 |
| multicluster engine for Kubernetes 2.9 | multicluster-engine/console-mce-rhel9:1777301444 | RHSA-2026:11414 |
| Network Observability (NETOBSERV) 1.11.0 | network-observability/network-observability-console-plugin-compat-rhel9:1778508956 | RHSA-2026:16874 |
| Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes 2.14 | rhacm2/console-rhel9:1783451729 | RHSA-2026:36882 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-40175 in your dependencies?
O3 Security finds CVE-2026-40175 across npm dependencies, including transitive ones, and its impact-aware SCA ranks findings by whether your code actually calls the vulnerable path.